January 31, 2025 • 6 mins
Head lice, otherwise known as nits or kutis, is one of the most frustrating medical conditions parents have to face. It’s very common and often seen in school outbreaks.
What are head lice and who gets them?
- They’re small insects found on the head. They live on hair and suck blood from the scalp.
- They lay eggs on the hair – looking like little grains of sand stuck to hair.
- Anyone can get them; it has nothing to do with poor hygiene. They do not carry disease.
- Only humans can get them, and they’re spread through direct head contact. Often found on children who sleep together or play together. Often spread by school outbreaks.
- They can’t live when not on the head and die quickly.
How do you know you have them?
- Sometimes can see live insects moving on the scalp.
- Nits, headlice eggs look like small grains of sand stuck to hair that can’t be brushed out: often found around the ears and back of the neck.
- Intense itch sometimes, kids often scratch at their hair.
- Scratching can cause sores to develop on the scalp.
- Often causes redness, swelling scalp.
What do you do about them?
Two things:
- You need to kill the live adult insects using a special shampoo and get rid of the eggs stuck to the hair.
- Use head lice shampoo ‘Dimethicone’ twice, one week apart. It’s not an insecticide, it suffocates the live head lice.
- You then have to comb out the eggs stuck to the hair, so they don’t hatch.
- A few times every day for 1-2 weeks: use a fine-tooth nit comb, wet comb with the conditioner and comb till no eggs coming free.
Any other things to think about?
- If one child gets infected in the family, check the rest of family and treat with shampoo on the same day.
- Tell your school – school outbreaks are common.
- It’s difficult to prevent.
- Never ever use fly spray or kerosene (sometimes promoted): dangerous!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Teams podcast
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be first of February means school is back, which means,
unfortunately for some families, knits are back as well. It's
one of those really common but incredibly frustrating medical conditions,
and doctor Brian Betty is with us this morning with
his advice on how to treat it and hopefully how
to avoid it as well.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Morning O Brian, I'm warning Jack. Nice to be here again.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, nice to be speaking with you. Happy New Year.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
What are he likes and who gives them?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah? Look, the tiny little insects that actually live on
the scalp, and they live on the scalp because they
actually live off blood. They suck blood out of the scalp.
So these tiny little insects, and what they do is
they lay eggs on strands of hair. So they lay
these little eggs that over about a week start to
(01:00):
hatch and you get more of these little little insects
in the scalp, living off the scalp. And yeah, they
cause these problems. They do not carry disease. So one
of the misconceptions about them is, oh, my kid's got
you know, sort of sort of head lies. Gosh, it's
poor hygiene, that's what's caused it. That is not the case.
(01:20):
Head lice cannot live outside of the scalp. They actually
jump from from head to head basically. So think of
kids in schools. They are often playing around rubbagen they're
they're there, their scalps touch, and if one child has
head lice, they often jump to the other child and
you start to get a spread occurring. So nothing to
do whatsoever with hygiene. Anyone can get head lice.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, okay, and how do you know that someone has?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, so look the thing you need to look out for,
and often the first sign that happens it's intensely itching.
So what you'll notice is your child's starting to scratch
at their head. Now, if they don't do that normally,
you'd need to start to think, well, gosh, is this
head lice. So the scratching can cause little sores on
this help you can get these little red areas on
(02:08):
the scalp that you start to notice. But if you
look closely at the base of the hair, you'll often
see the little headlights, little insects of the little legs
or the other giveaway is you find these little little
what look like grains of sand stuck to the strands
of hair, and those are the eggs that they've laid.
And typically you'll find those behind the ears or around
(02:30):
the back of the neck and it's very very distinctive
when you see them, and that's a really really core
indicator that you know, knits, cooties or headlights is part
of the issue.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, what do you do about them?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Look, there's really two things, and you've got to separate
out the two problems. Number one, you've got to kill
the live adult insects because if you don't, they keep
laying eggs. So that's really really important. So to do that,
we use a shampoo dimeth cone. You use it twice
a week, once then seven days later because they tend
to hatch over a seven day period. Now, the important
(03:03):
thing about dimethic cone, it is not an insect. What
it actually does is just suffocate the little lice, so
it's very safe to use with your child. So number one,
you've got to kill the insects, so that's really really important.
But you've got to get rid of the eggs because
if you don't, they will continue to hatch and continue
to cause a problem. Now, to get rid of the eggs,
you've got to use what's called a knit comb. You
(03:25):
often get those from the chemists, very fine little metal combs,
and you wet comb the hair. So what you do
is put in some conditioner, cheap conditioner, anything will do,
keep their hair wet, and then start to comb out
the here. Now, the the thing about that is you've
got to be really pedantic about it, and you've got
to do it every day for about one to two
(03:46):
weeks because you've got to get rid of all those
little little eggs that are stuck to the strands of here,
and so you keep doing it till you see no
more eggs coming out. So look, yeah, bit of a mission,
but you've got to do Those two things are two
separate issues, and you've got to approach it that way.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, it's one of those things too, Right, If one
child in the family has that, you've got to check everyone.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
You absolutely have to. So you have to assume that
if one child's got it, it may have jumped to
the other. So generally we recommend that if we're treating
one child, then the other children in the family actually
or all the other members of the family treat with
this shampoo, okay, twice a week as well, just to
make sure there's no live ones that have jumped to
the other child. Really important to tell your school if
(04:31):
there's an outbreak so they can warn other parents to
look out for it, because again that tends to spread
through schools. You tend to get outbreaks, very difficult to
prevent because these live little bugs just jump from one
to the other and kids are always playing around together.
And look, one thing I do need to say is
sometimes you know old wives tale that you can use
kerosene or fly spray or anything like that, just don't.
(04:54):
It's dangerous not to do it. Just just go with
this this shampoo which suffocates them and pedantic knit coming
this way to go.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
If you were here more your scalpe as it right now.
Don't worry, you don't have knits. That's just what happens
when you have these comments inevitable, right and you start
doing it, and I'm like, oh, yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay,
I've got one really disgusting tip. This is really disgusting.
So I'm just wondering if you haven't had your breakfast
(05:25):
just yet. Just take a deep intake of breath. So,
being one of four when we were kids and there
would be knit outbreaks in the Tame household, that was
usually a bit of a mission getting everyone sorted. And
Dad used to do the wet combing, and we'd get
the big knits out with the wet comb, you know,
and he put them down on the table and you
have a you'd have a knit there, and my job
(05:46):
was to use the back of a dessert spoon to
crush them, crush them, and that's how you know they're dead.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Very satisfying thing to do, though, Jack.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Very satisfying, very effective, extremely disgusting. So my apologies. Hey,
thank you so much. Brian really appreciate that. The their
advice and we'll make sure it's available online as well.
Right now, it's nine minutes to eleven.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks edb from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Teams podcast
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be first of February means school is back, which means,
unfortunately for some families, knits are back as well. It's
one of those really common but incredibly frustrating medical conditions,
and doctor Brian Betty is with us this morning with
his advice on how to treat it and hopefully how
to avoid it as well.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Morning O Brian, I'm warning Jack. Nice to be here again.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, nice to be speaking with you. Happy New Year.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
What are he likes and who gives them?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah? Look, the tiny little insects that actually live on
the scalp, and they live on the scalp because they
actually live off blood. They suck blood out of the scalp.
So these tiny little insects, and what they do is
they lay eggs on strands of hair. So they lay
these little eggs that over about a week start to
(01:00):
hatch and you get more of these little little insects
in the scalp, living off the scalp. And yeah, they
cause these problems. They do not carry disease. So one
of the misconceptions about them is, oh, my kid's got
you know, sort of sort of head lies. Gosh, it's
poor hygiene, that's what's caused it. That is not the case.
(01:20):
Head lice cannot live outside of the scalp. They actually
jump from from head to head basically. So think of
kids in schools. They are often playing around rubbagen they're
they're there, their scalps touch, and if one child has
head lice, they often jump to the other child and
you start to get a spread occurring. So nothing to
do whatsoever with hygiene. Anyone can get head lice.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, okay, and how do you know that someone has?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, so look the thing you need to look out for,
and often the first sign that happens it's intensely itching.
So what you'll notice is your child's starting to scratch
at their head. Now, if they don't do that normally,
you'd need to start to think, well, gosh, is this
head lice. So the scratching can cause little sores on
this help you can get these little red areas on
(02:08):
the scalp that you start to notice. But if you
look closely at the base of the hair, you'll often
see the little headlights, little insects of the little legs
or the other giveaway is you find these little little
what look like grains of sand stuck to the strands
of hair, and those are the eggs that they've laid.
And typically you'll find those behind the ears or around
(02:30):
the back of the neck and it's very very distinctive
when you see them, and that's a really really core
indicator that you know, knits, cooties or headlights is part
of the issue.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, what do you do about them?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Look, there's really two things, and you've got to separate
out the two problems. Number one, you've got to kill
the live adult insects because if you don't, they keep
laying eggs. So that's really really important. So to do that,
we use a shampoo dimeth cone. You use it twice
a week, once then seven days later because they tend
to hatch over a seven day period. Now, the important
(03:03):
thing about dimethic cone, it is not an insect. What
it actually does is just suffocate the little lice, so
it's very safe to use with your child. So number one,
you've got to kill the insects, so that's really really important.
But you've got to get rid of the eggs because
if you don't, they will continue to hatch and continue
to cause a problem. Now, to get rid of the eggs,
you've got to use what's called a knit comb. You
(03:25):
often get those from the chemists, very fine little metal combs,
and you wet comb the hair. So what you do
is put in some conditioner, cheap conditioner, anything will do,
keep their hair wet, and then start to comb out
the here. Now, the the thing about that is you've
got to be really pedantic about it, and you've got
to do it every day for about one to two
(03:46):
weeks because you've got to get rid of all those
little little eggs that are stuck to the strands of here,
and so you keep doing it till you see no
more eggs coming out. So look, yeah, bit of a mission,
but you've got to do Those two things are two
separate issues, and you've got to approach it that way.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, it's one of those things too, Right, If one
child in the family has that, you've got to check everyone.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
You absolutely have to. So you have to assume that
if one child's got it, it may have jumped to
the other. So generally we recommend that if we're treating
one child, then the other children in the family actually
or all the other members of the family treat with
this shampoo, okay, twice a week as well, just to
make sure there's no live ones that have jumped to
the other child. Really important to tell your school if
(04:31):
there's an outbreak so they can warn other parents to
look out for it, because again that tends to spread
through schools. You tend to get outbreaks, very difficult to
prevent because these live little bugs just jump from one
to the other and kids are always playing around together.
And look, one thing I do need to say is
sometimes you know old wives tale that you can use
kerosene or fly spray or anything like that, just don't.
(04:54):
It's dangerous not to do it. Just just go with
this this shampoo which suffocates them and pedantic knit coming
this way to go.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
If you were here more your scalpe as it right now.
Don't worry, you don't have knits. That's just what happens
when you have these comments inevitable, right and you start
doing it, and I'm like, oh, yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay,
I've got one really disgusting tip. This is really disgusting.
So I'm just wondering if you haven't had your breakfast
(05:25):
just yet. Just take a deep intake of breath. So,
being one of four when we were kids and there
would be knit outbreaks in the Tame household, that was
usually a bit of a mission getting everyone sorted. And
Dad used to do the wet combing, and we'd get
the big knits out with the wet comb, you know,
and he put them down on the table and you
have a you'd have a knit there, and my job
(05:46):
was to use the back of a dessert spoon to
crush them, crush them, and that's how you know they're dead.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Very satisfying thing to do, though, Jack.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Very satisfying, very effective, extremely disgusting. So my apologies. Hey,
thank you so much. Brian really appreciate that. The their
advice and we'll make sure it's available online as well.
Right now, it's nine minutes to eleven.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks edb from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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