How old are head lice before they lay eggs?

Question

My eldest daughter had a case of nits before christmas & we were recommended full marks mousse from the chemist. All four of us in the house used the treatment, then we went through her hair with conditioner & a nit comb. I've just found more lice in my youngest daughters hair-we didn't nit comb her hair after the last treatment so I think she must have had eggs even though we found no lice (doesn't the mousse kill the eggs?). I have treated us all again with the full marks mousse & have nit combed us all this time, but now I have been advised to retreat us all in about a weeks time (I wasn't told this originally & it doesn't say anything on the leaflet enclosed about repeating the treatment). I'm trying to work out the best time to repeat the mousse - too soon & I miss eggs still to hatch & too late & the new lice will have layed more eggs! I have once again washed all bedding, towels, combs etc - & would really like to see the end of these once & for all!

Answer 1

Lice live approximately 40-50 days and go through 3 stages in their life cycle. Eggs: The female louse lays the egg with a special glue that cements itself in the hair shaft near the root. The eggs develop and hatch approxiamately 10 days later. While lice treatments effectively kill lice, they also kill some , but not all, of the eggs. This is why it is important to Treat when the eggs hatch on day 10. Treating sooner may not be effective because the eggs may not have hatched. Nymphs: Once the louse hatches, it is called a nymph and is barely visible to the naked eye. The nymph cannot reproduce because it is not fully developed. After 12 days it becomes an adult. Adults: The adult louse can lay up to 4-10 eggs a day - starting another generation of lice. The adult stage lasts about 28 days.
I am unfamiliar with the product you are using, but what I have found to be the best is a product made by RID. You can find it at many of your local drug stores, and sometimes Walmart and Walgreens carries it as well. It is a complete kit and is called the 1-2-3 lice elimination system. This product includes enough product to get you through one, maybe two depending on hair length, complete lice life cycles. This product is designed to be used on day 1 and day 10. There are several steps on each of the two treatment days, and possibly repeating the first two steps from day one of treament on any or all of the next few days. This product gives a step by step guide to walk you through everything and is very user friendly. It also includes a spray for your items such as bedding and furniture that is non washable. This product is not cheap. It runs upward of $30.00 depending on where you get it. Just remember that eventhough other products may be cheaper, if you figure in the fact that these products are normally used in conjunction with others and do not always treat the entire life cycle of the lice, you may wind up spending even more money due to having to retreat.
This may be where you are finding yourself now. Even if you are unable to purchase this treatment kit, the information that I have included above about the entire life cycles of lice will be helpful when reusing the treatment that you currently have. I am sorry that you were not informed to the fact that repeating treatment is just as crutial as timing when dealing with this issue. The product I refer to suggest that you must treat on day one and day ten. On day one you must prepare an area to use as the treatment area. One with flooring such as tile, hard wood, lienoleum, etc. is ideal when available. The main things that you want to avoid, are things that can not be easily removed for treatment or things you do not wish to dispose of, such as carpeting. If a carpeted area is your only solution, it is recommended that you place something over that area such as painter's plastic or a drop cloth that can be discarded or at worst removed to be treated at another location. Depending on your budget you may need to be creative. In this area you also need to remove any drapery, rugs, furniture, and anything else that can be a home to these things as you start to treat your families hair. Remember that they are going to rapidly flee from the light and especially the treatment that you will be appling. Luckily they can not jump or fly from one host to another, however they crawl at very fast pace and are very hard to detect with the naked eye.
This brings me to the next point that the "treatment area" that you have chosen also needs to be very well light.
Next you need to have the family member have as little clothing on as possible that allows all other personal body hair that is not going to be treated to be covered up. Any areas that you can shave or trim, it is reccommended that you do so. This makes for less articles of clothing to have to be discarded or treated at a later time. Make sure that you are treating DRY hair as I mentioned earlier, lice have the ability to hold their breath during times of treatment making the ingredients in the treatments more difficult to penetrate and making the treatments less effective. It also states that water on the hair dilutes the formula of the treatments also making them less effective.
Working with small areas at a time, this product suggests that you massage the product into the hair until the area you are working with becomes completely saturated. It also states to always work the product from the root of the hair outward toward the ends to insure that they do not crawl back toward the scalp. Instead, they are being forced off the ends of the hair shaft. This is why it is so important to prepare the treatment area thoroughly. When they are forced off the ends of the hair they are still alive and must go somewhere.!!!
After you have worked the entire head and all the hair is saturated, you must leave it on the head for ten minutes. During this time, the people that are being treated must not leave the treatment area due to the fact that there are now live lice looking for anywhere else to be other than their currently location due to the ingredients in the treatment. During this time it is critical that anyone being treated not come in contact with anything that will need to be treated later. This includes even getting close enough for the infected to relocate on any items that you will have to later treat.
After waiting the ten minutes that is required, it nows suggests that the mousse be rinsed with warm water and the hair then to be washed with soap or shampoo. This is where the towels that can be disposed of will come in handy. If this is not an option for you, please remember to keep all of the towels, clothing, hair combs and brushes, etc. seperate from any other items until they can be treated and washed shortly.
Next, it is required to comb out the hair with the egg and nit gel. During this product it is recommended that again working with small sections of hair at a time, you comb from the root outward to the ends of the hair combing the hair up and out away from the base of the head. Since you have already gone through this process previously, I will not go through the steps again. It does however suggest that while working with small sections of hair at a time, you pin up with bobbie pins the section of hair that has just been treated until the entire head of hair is pinned up. You then can continue with warm water and regular shampoo if needed.
Step three refers to the treatment of the house and its components. It states to disinfect combs and brushes in hot water above 130 degrees F for 5 to 10 minutes. It suggests that all furniture and bedding etc. be treated with the spray that is included in the kit. It suggests also treating car upholstry and carpeting. Vacuum rugs and carpeting and dispose of the vacuum cleaner bags immediately. Wash all washable items in hot water and place in a hot dryer for at least 20 min on high heat setting. Remove and treat the lint trap of the dryer upon removal. Dry clean all non washable items. Place all plush toys in Ziplock type sealed bags for two weeks. These bags must be air tight and not opened for two weeks.
Next, it suggests to check daily for reinfestation of each family member for at least the next two weeks. If you see any eggs or nits repeat step two. If lice appear on any family member repeat steps one and two and you must again rewash all clothing, bedding etc.
On Day Ten : It states that for mousse it needs to be reapplied and steps one and two need to be repeated. It states that it must not be reapplied before day ten or you will allow some of the lice that have not hatched to survive starting another life cycle!!!!
I did notice that you mentioned that you have rewashed the bedding and clothes, however, know that lice can hold their breath when immersed in water making them even more difficult to kill without proper ingredients designed for just that.
I do not know what your financial situation allows for, but where you can, the best thing to do is throw away the towels, combs, brushes, and anything else that you can afford to re-purchase. This will make it a little less likely that the lice will reappear. I understand that this is not always an option and this is another reason that the above kit is a good choice. The things that you must keep and are going to be shared or re-used by the family must be treated effectively and at the same time. The fact that they need to be treated at the same time is a very important detail that need not be overlooked.
I am sure by now that you see just exactly how difficult this situation is to get a handle on, but with great presistence, and dedication you can get it under control. It will be easier to suck it up and take the time to be thorough and persistant the first times to keep you from having this be a never ending problem.
If you are already aware then please allow me to reitterate that this is something that requires you to be EXTREMELY detailed and thorough with treatment. You can not just wipe down areas of your home as if to light clean, you MUST go over every last inch of your home with a fine tooth comb (no pun intended). You must wash AND TREAT rugs, towels, drapery, all hair accessories of any kind including plastic but especially fabric or ribbons. If anyone in your family that is infected has come into contact with the carpet this too needs to be TREATED and cleaned. If you are having to reuse hair brushes and combs, they must be TREATED AS WELL AS SOAKED IN water over 130 degrees to insure all the eggs and adults are killed. All furniture, baseboards, matresses, pillows not just the cases, need to be TREATED and washed. All clothes that have been worn during the time of the infestation or that have come into contact with by means of the dirty clothes hampers or laundry piles any infected articles of clothing must be TREATED and washed. Any coats, hats, earmuffs, scarfs, etc. must go through the same treatments. Also if any of your children are at an age that they have toys that are plush, or doll like (possessing fake hair such as Barbie dolls, Bratz dolls, etc) these to must all be treated. This includes all stuffed annimals. Any plastic toys can be treated and sanitized just as you are going to need to do to your hair combs and brushes. Also, if you have any family pets they too need to be treated with a treatment that is designed especially for pets and animals. All of the initial treatments need to be done on the same day of the treatment of the members of your family. You should treat all the members of your family as well as all of their bedding, brushes, clothing, etc. even if there are no apperent signs of infestation to prevent future cycles to begin again due to undetected eggs that may have been overlooked. I can not stress enough that you are going to have to treat and sanitize your home as if it were a hospital.
To be fair to others that any of your family members may come into contact with, please notify them of your situation so that they can also prepare their home and members of their family for Possible Infestations. If that is something that you do not feel comfortable with, please at least educate your family members, especially children, to act with extreme caution during this time to not share or come into contact with others clothing, hair accessories, pillows, toys, etc. Also, make them aware of the placement of their coats, hats, scarves, etc. when hanging them in public places such as on hooks at school, or checking them at coat checks or piling them with other articles of clothes that belong to others. This not only will help protect others that your family interacts with, but most importantly it will prevent your family members from coming into contact once again with anyone that may be completely unaware that a problem even exists, until it is too late. Anything that you can do to not reincounter this problem again will make life much easier on you. I think I can speak for everyone that has ever exhausted themselves and "survived" a lice cycle that once you have gotten rid of the problem, you are in no big hurry to ever experience it again.
Please notify your children that life as they now know it will more than likely be temporarily interupted. Please notify them that in the next few weeks ahead they are going to need to be on "High Alert" and educate them on the things that they need to look for and be aware of when socializing amongst friends and family. Let them know that this interuption is only temporary and with team work and discipline, you can all return to the normal activities that you once participated in. Also Let them know with confidence, that eventhough this is a serious problem, it is one that you are all working together with a common goal to solve effectively. Reassure them that you will all return to your usual ways of life in a very short amount of time and with a peace of mind that this is something you all will get through. This will allow your children to help you in the cleaning of and keeping clean all the things that are going to be treated in your home.

Hope this helps and Good Luck,
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Answer 2

Hello. I haven't had nits for a couple of years now (I am 15 now) but when I was younger I was ALWAYS getting nits and they were so annoying. The biggest tip i can give you is don't buy treatments and stuff they just waste your money,smell and are so annoying. Just go out to the cheap shop buy the biggest cheapest bottle of conditioner and a nit comb. Get them to sit in the bath/bathroom put heaps and heaps of conditioner in their hair then run the comb through their hair for like half an hour. The lice and eggs can't hold on. Do this every day for a week and they'll be gone. Also wash all your sheets and pillow cases as soon as you find the lice. They live in the sheets and pillow cases so they will come back. You are garentee'd not a dint in the financal area and your kids heads will be clean. Also do your kids wash their hair every night? Do it every second night. Nits LOVE clean hair.

Hope to of helped.

Kori

Answer 3

I found this in Yahoo Health:
What Happens

Lice will not go away without treatment. If the initial treatment does not kill all of the eggs (nits), a follow-up treatment may be required 7 to 10 days later to kill the newly hatched lice. Itching may last for 7 to 10 days even after successful treatment.

After treatment, dead nits may remain in the person's hair until they are removed. Some schools have a policy of not allowing children to return to school until they are free of nits.

If your child has lice, report it to your child's day care provider or school. Other children should be checked so they can be treated to help prevent new and recurrent infestations.
Treatment usually begins with application of a cream, shampoo, or lotion to kill lice. Prescription and nonprescription medications are both available. Washing clothes and linens in hot water is generally recommended.
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Check it out. It has a lot of details and answers to most Qs. http://health.yahoo.com/ency/healthwise/hw51114

Best would be to cut the children's hair short; so management will be easy for a while.

Answer 4

Hi

had the same thing recently with my daughter.

The cream / mousse doesnt kill the eggs, that is the reason for going over the hair each day with the comb - but even more effective is with your fingers as the legs on the comb are not small enough to get the eggs and they stick to the hair - it just kills the live ones.

Eggs take a week to hatch and so it is suggested that if you are using the mousse on "day 1" you have about a week to try and get all the eggs out before they could hatch again.

White eggs are "live"
Black eggs are already hatched and "dead"

What we did was use the lotion on day one.
Then each day we washed her hair with tee tree shampoo (reccomended due to its stickyness) and then with the same make conditioner. With the conditioner still in the hair use the comb again and then rinse out.
if she can sit still then while the hair is still wet, you need to go through it and take out the eggs with your fingers.

Do this for 10 days and only if you see her scratching again or pick out a live one, should you use the lotion again.

I am sure you know but lice is nothing to do with dirty hair and they can not jump - they need to go with head to head contact.

Another thing to do would be to keep her hair up in a platt rather than down or in a pony.

hope this helps

Answer 5

Head lice are usually two weeks old before they lay eggs

Answer 6

The life-cycle is about two weeks. They seem to be able to reproduce pretty quickly after hatching... We had the headlice problem from when my daughter first went to Playgroup at three, and had years of misery trying lotions & electronic combs without success.

But eventually I found the solution! It's called the Nitty-Gritty comb; it works because the teeth are close enough together to strip out the eggs, so breaking the cycle. You use it three times a week for a fortnight or so, with conditioner. Wipe the eggs off with a tissue after each 'swipe'. They have a website, and it's about £10, incl p&p. Try it - it worked for us!

Answer 7

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RE:
How old are head lice before they lay eggs?
My eldest daughter had a case of nits before christmas & we were recommended full marks mousse from the chemist. All four of us in the house used the treatment, then we went through her hair with conditioner & a nit comb. I've just found more lice in my youngest daughters hair-we didn't nit...

Answer 8

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My experience with head lice is about the same. I had a 2 year old a week before my wedding that had head lice! The shampoo's did little more than slow them down so I could catch them. I eventually had to sit my daughter down in front of me and tell her not to move and put in a video she liked to watch. She hated it but I had to do it. First, I would shampoo the hair and then section it off with hair clips. ( go to a salon and ask them to show you how to section hair) With the hair still wet (it won't be by the time you are finished but it makes it easier to section) pull small pieces out of the sectioned hair and if you spot an egg... pull it off by pinching it with your nails. Do not just toss it aside. Pinch it till you feel it snap in between your thumb nails. (this destroys the egg) You need to do this so that the child does not get re-infected by eggs that hatch on the floor. If you see a bug, pull it off and snap it between your finger nails. Continue until you have done the entire head. This can take hours. You can not adequately get them all while the child is asleep because you have to make sure with good sections that no bugs are crawling from the uncleaned section to the clean section. This is tedious but I have found it the only surefire way to get rid of them. (Certain strains have become immune to the shampoo's- which is why it won't kill the eggs) Now for the really fun part, do this every 2-3 days for about 2 weeks. The nit or egg takes about that long to hatch. When they are laid, they are microscopic so one nit-picking session will not do! You must check every couple of days to remove anything you have missed because the eggs get bigger with time and easier to see. If you would like, I have also heard that using a wax removing fruit cleanser will also help the nits come off easier because it breaks down the goo that the lice use to attach it to the hair shaft. After the first nit-picking session that was done fully as described above, then fully clean the house. Vacuum, package up stuffed animals and place them in a plastic bag for about a month someplace out of the reach of humans (garage?). This gives any eggs that are on them a chance to hatch and die before you give them back to your child. Change the child's sheets at least twice a week until you have finished the routine. Wash them in hot water. Bedding is a common place for re-infestation to occur. People are going to tell you to use mayonnaise... don't... it doesn't work and is a bear to get out of the hair! Some have said kerosene..... DON"T it could cause the hair to catch fire and it can not be washed out well. Hairspray is also not very effective. If you don't mind trying home remedies, These are most likely the least harmful and I have heard that they have worked for some: Listerine and white Vinegar cure: Saturate the hair with listerine mouthwash and cover with a shower cap. Leave for 2 hours then shampoo in the normal way. Then saturate the hair with white vinegar and comb with a nit comb and the vinegar destroys the glue that the head lice fix the nits to the hair with. Just comb them out. Good luck. I hated doing this. On the up side, my daughter is now 13 and would rather die than share a comb or brush with anyone. LOL EDIT: I have noticed that several people have mentioned the Doctor. Don't do that. The medication they will give you has begun to NOT work on the lice or the eggs. (my daughter used it twice!) One of the doctors would not even examine my daughter and actually told me to just send her to the wedding (as my flower girl) with head lice! He said the guests wouldn't mind if they got head lice from a cute little girl! Can you imagine!!! The medication the Doctor will give you is also VERY Toxic and could be harmful to your child. REPEATING ONCE MORE FOR IMPACT: THE LICE ARE BECOMING RESISTANT TO THE SHAMPOO! THEY DON'T WORK LIKE THEY DID WHEN THEY FIRST CAME OUT!

Answer 9

The best way to get rid of head lice is to wet come the hair every day using loads of conditioner the little blighters can't grip with very slippy hair, pay careful attention to behind the ears, and nape of the neck where it is the warmest, if all else fails try derbac-m go to your health visitor first as it is chemicals you will be using.

Answer 10

Go to the drugstore and buy some camphor and borax. 1 tablespoon of each compound into a normal sized squirt bottle. After washing the hair, towel dry and then spray with this solution. Leave on the hair to dry ( best time is in the evening) then wash out in the morning. do this every other day and after a wwk your problem should be solved.

Answer 11

licw lay eggs really quickly! do have have any hair straighteners at home-my children were riddled with nitsbut i never got any (neither did my frind who worked at their playgroup) we put this down o using straighteners. I straighten their hair bfore they bath each night and haven't had a problem since.
Failing that, its drasic but use a flea spray for dogs (frontline) it doesn't harm them and seems to work-must piont out this is a friends way of dealing with it, but does seem effective!