If you want to rid your children of lice and nits and don’t want to use chemicals, a hairdryer-type device may be just what you are looking for. Use it on your child for 30-minutes and he/she will be infestation free, say the makers of the LouseBuster, Larada Sciences. The makers stress that their device dries the bugs out, it does not heat them. You should not try doing this at home with your hairdryer.

You can read about this in the journal Pediatrics.

Larada Sciences says the LouseBuster should be on the market within the next two years.

Currently, there are various ways of treating headlice, chemical shampoos among them. However, there is evidence that the lice are developing resistance to them. Special combs can also be effective, but the user has to follow the instructions carefully – many people don’t.

Dr Dale Clayton, who co-invented the LouseBuster, stressed that it does not work by heating the nits and lice out, “We don’t want kids getting burned by parents who think it is the heat. This thing is actually cooler than a hairdryer, but requires twice as much airflow, and the special hand piece is critical because, unless you expose the roots of the hair, it doesn’t work. It’s difficult to do that with a regular comb.”

The new 30-minute treatment has been shown to eliminate 80% of lice and 98% of nits. The researchers said there was no evidence of any side-effects from this treatment.

What are Lice and Nits

The singular of Lice is Louse (one louse, two lice). The eggs of lice are called Nits. Lice are tiny, light-brown insects, they live on the human scalp. They suck blood from the scalp. They lay their greyish eggs, which stick firmly onto the shaft of your hair, very close to the scalp. The eggs hatch after about one week. As lice can start laying eggs when they are just two weeks’ old, it is not long before a person has hundreds of them on his/her head (an infestation).

Lice, unlike fleas, do not jump. They go from one head to another when the two heads are touching each other (they walk over).

Lice need the warmth of the scalp to survive, that is why combs and brushes do not have live lice.

The word LOUSY, as in “I have a lousy teacher”, comes from the meaning ‘infested with lice’.

“An Effective Nonchemical Treatment for Head Lice: A Lot of Hot Air”
Brad M. Goates, MS, Joseph S. Atkin, BA, Kevin G. Wilding, BS, Kurtis G. Birch, BS, Michael R. Cottam, MS, Sarah E. Bush, PhD and Dale H. Clayton, MS, PhD
PEDIATRICS Vol. 118 No. 5 November 2006, pp. 1962-1970
doi:10.1542/peds.2005-1847
Click here to see abstract online

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today