It can be done very easily. It is enough to have close contact with a sick person or with his clothes and that’s it, the parasites have already been found new house. It is extremely difficult to remove these parasitic insects. The process takes a lot of time and effort. In addition, it is unpleasant to realize that there is a problem in principle.
The fight against lice must be approached comprehensively, that is, use several proven and effective ways. Pharmacies offer a wide variety of medications and price ranges that can help remove lice.
When the process is not too advanced, it is permissible to use folk remedies. In any case, you need to know at what temperature lice and nits die in order to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
Important! The information presented should not be taken literally. And run out into the cold with your head uncovered or take a steam bath in the sauna.
Temperature that is destructive for lice and nits , mainly used in the fight against body lice, since their habitat is clothing, bedding, etc. Linen is hung outside at a low temperature or simply treated with steam.
At what temperature do lice eggs die?
- below -20°C;
- above +60°C.
These conditions apply specifically to linen lice. It is better to boil contaminated clothing and linen or hang it out in the cold. Adults cannot get by for a long time without food, but the larvae can, and when acceptable conditions are restored, will hatch successfully. In addition, nits are very securely attached to the surface of the hair and fabric. After appropriate treatment, they must be removed, combed, and cleaned.
Important! To prevent and combat body lice, clothes and linen are hung outside in winter, when the frost is -20°C, for a long time.
To prevent lice infection, you should not use someone else’s comb, towel, hat, etc.
To kill head or pubic lice, it is better to use pharmaceutical products.
Knowing at what temperature conditions lice and nits die, you can successfully, and most importantly, effectively and quickly fight them. Maintain personal hygiene.
Ways to control insects
Knowing at what temperature lice die, you can easily neutralize them, but do not forget about nits. By observing certain temperature limits it is easy to deal with them.
Freezing things and linen is carried out in the following ways:
- frozen outside when the frost is below 20°C;
- contaminated items are placed in bags and flash frozen.
When using high temperatures use other methods:
- using a hot air stream from a hairdryer, treat an area of the body, then mechanically select lice and nits;
- washing in washing machine at high temperatures, not less than +60°C;
- ironing clothes with an iron, paying particular attention to seams and folds;
- boiling things for one hour.
The given methods of exposure are very effective and safe if precautions are taken. Although it will take some time and effort, the results will be worth it.
The influence of temperature on lice reproduction
Lice are quite prolific insects, but their reproduction rate is also affected by temperature conditions. When the temperature drops just below +22°C and rises above +40°C, the larvae feel uncomfortable; their development stops, and the adults weaken and stop biting their host. The development of nits is also inhibited, the process of their maturation is suspended.
Considering the effect of temperature on lice reproduction, we can conclude:
- with a decrease - lice become unviable, the larvae die of hunger as they stop feeding;
- with promotion, they simply die.
Lice on the human body
There is such a radical way as shaving hair from the head and body. The shaved hair is thrown away, burned, and the skin is treated with soap containing birch tar or pharmaceutical shampoos, products, etc.
Nowadays, pediculosis is a very common disease. Infection occurs quickly. Lice, except for the cases listed above, can be caught anywhere:
- in public transport;
- in the pool, sauna;
- through an unprocessed hairdressing tool, etc.
Very often, infection can occur in a preschool institution. If a child has lice, he will infect other children. That is why a medical certificate is required to visit the pool or kindergarten.
Knowing what lice are afraid of, you can remove them in almost a few hours, and with the right approach - in just one time. Typically, the procedure for eliminating lice on the head or other parts of the body requires repeated use of pediculicidal agents, and its success largely depends on how effective drug applies.
Frost: how to get rid of lice using low temperatures
Lice are afraid of the cold. However, like most other insects, they can withstand temperatures dropping to 0°C and can remain alive for some time even at negative temperatures. Lice die in cold temperatures of minus 5°C within 20-30 minutes, while stronger frost kills them almost instantly.
On a note
Likewise, skinny dipping in an ice hole will be ineffective if you have lice pubis. The water temperature, even at sea, rarely drops below minus 1°C, and lice can easily survive such an immersion in icy water. An ordinary person (not a “walrus”) can suffer from hypothermia much more severely than the lice themselves.
It should also be borne in mind that lice are quite resistant to a lack of oxygen and can easily tolerate long-term diving of the owner under water.
The fear of cold lice can be used mainly to combat body lice (linen lice). They spend most of their time on clothing and only move to the human body to feed.
To get rid of linen lice, you should take all the infested clothing and hang it out in the bitter cold for several days. While lice are dying in the cold, you should only wear clean underwear that is guaranteed not to be infected. After three to four days, all lice and nits in the clothes will die.
This is interesting
Lice and cold are rarely found nearby in nature. Optimal temperature reproduction of all lice living on humans is +31°C, and already at +20°C they stop reproducing, and the development of their eggs (nits) practically stops. However, at this temperature, adult insects remain active and continue to feed. Therefore, generally speaking, “cold” for lice is still quite comfortable temperatures for humans. But in the cold, lice cannot move, feed or be active in any way.
“In Koyanov, no one knows about these pesticides of yours. There are two remedies for lice - kerosene and frost. My grandmother also told me that lice are afraid of frost. You just take your laundry and hang it outside for a few days in winter. It froze out - I changed it, and hung it up too. And all business. But this only works. The pubic or scalp needs to be poisoned with kerosene...”
Pavel, Koyanovo
High temperatures
Lice also find it difficult to tolerate high temperatures. At +40°C they stop reproducing, at +45°C the development of nits stops, and at +50°C adult individuals die within half an hour.
These substances are used in most modern shampoos, gels and balms. They usually paralyze nervous system lice and lead to their death within a few minutes after applying the product to the hair.
As such toxic components in the composition of pediculicidal agents, various pyrethroids are mainly used - Cypermethrin, Deltamethrin and some of their analogs. They are contained, for example, in lice preparations such as Medifox, NOC, Bubil, etc.
Funds based modern insecticides They are very effective against lice and at the same time relatively safe to use - they rarely cause allergies and do not lead to intoxication. They are most often used in the fight against lice in children.
Kerosene
Lice are afraid of the smell of kerosene and die when the substance comes into contact with the chitinous surface of the body. A half-hour treatment of the head with kerosene allows you to destroy all adult lice and larvae, while a repeated session a week later ensures the extermination of young larvae hatched from the surviving nits.
Improper use of kerosene can lead to extensive scalp burns and poisoning, especially in children. When working, we should not forget that kerosene is very flammable, and its vapors can ignite from the slightest ignition source.
Vinegar
In its effect on lice, vinegar is somewhat similar to the effect of kerosene. At the same time, it dissolves the nit shells much better (more precisely, it softens the adhesive mass with which the nits are attached to the hair).
Lice die from table vinegar(9%) diluted in a ratio of one part vinegar to two parts water. When using vinegar, you should follow the same safety precautions as when using it - undiluted vinegar can cause skin burns!
Cranberry juice
Cranberry juice is another great one folk remedy to combat lice and nits. Lice are afraid of it and die when the hair is treated with juice, and nits when using this product easily peel off from the hair when combed out. This can be used when combining cranberry juice with lice combs.
On a note
Lice and nits are generally afraid (relatively speaking) of strong organic acids. For example, among folk recipes For lice, there are products with citric, malic and grape acids.
Hellebore water
What lice are definitely not afraid of?
And here’s what lice are definitely not afraid of:
And they have no chance at all if the temperature rises above +54°C or drops below -13°C. In such conditions, lice can live no more than 5 minutes.
The temperature spread in this case is about 65°C. But these indicators are still conditional, since air humidity makes its own adjustments to them. If it increases, then the temperature range at which lice feel normal is reduced. If the humidity decreases, then the optimal range approximately corresponds to the above values.
At what temperature do nits die?
Nits are more resistant to exposure unfavorable conditions than adults, since the shell protects the larvae, including from temperature changes. Those conditions that are fatal for adult lice, the nits tolerate quite normally, and after they return to their original indicators, they continue their development inside the capsule. However, there are also conditions critical for the larvae under which nits die. This temperature range varies from -20°С to +60°С. As you can see, it is already 80°C. At 100°C, nits die instantly.
Precautionary measures
Having such data at your disposal, you should not immediately run outside in the cold and walk along it without a hat. Nothing good will come of this, because hair is designed to maintain a constant temperature at the surface of the skin and it copes with this task perfectly.
Therefore, one cannot expect that lice will die because the owner walks down the street in cold weather, because under the hair they will be relatively warm and comfortable. Such “treatment” will be even more useless for nits, since their shell will reliably protect the larvae from the effects of cold. All that can be obtained from such an undertaking is colds that will have to be treated.
Warm treatment of head lice
Based on the temperatures at which lice and nits die, special methods have been developed to eliminate them. This:
Process the head warm air or water as many times as needed to keep it clean.
How to remove body lice with heat
Not a single insect can withstand boiling and steam treatment, so these methods can be considered reliable and guarantee 100% results.
How to get rid of body lice using cold
Linen lice die not only from heat.
Cold, especially severe frosts, also have a detrimental effect on them:
- To ensure that you get rid of lice and their larvae, you need to take your underwear or clothes out in winter to temperatures below -20°C and leave them there for a couple of days. Then shake them out well and remove them with a brush. dead lice and nits. After bringing the clothes back into the room, you need to iron them several times with a hot iron, especially carefully in the seams where insects like to be most often.
- The same needs to be done with carpets, bedspreads, and bed linen.
- In spring and summer, you can freeze laundry in the freezer, for which you need to put it in a sealed bag and put it in the freezer overnight. After freezing, all that remains is to brush off the lice or wash your clothes in hot water or treat with a steam generator. It is likely that lice eggs can survive such a single treatment, so after a week, freezing in the freezer will need to be repeated.
One way to combat lice is to change the temperature that is comfortable for them. Basically, this method is suitable for killing body lice. Although recently there are various methods heat treatment of hair on the human head. Let’s look at what lice are afraid of and how you can fight them, knowing at what temperature lice die.
But change comfortable temperature environment Can. With such changes, insects cannot stand it for long and die. There are two options - to radically increase or decrease the temperature. Typically, a louse can live for several days outside the human body. Acceptable temperature is from -5 to +40 degrees Celsius.
Temperature drop
Note! Some may think that walking in the cold without a hat will help get rid of insects. This is a big misconception.
Even being exposed to cold air for a long time will not help get rid of the disease. In fact, walking on a frosty day without a hat can only cause you to catch a cold and freeze your ears. This will not affect lice in any way, because they crawl on the skin and hair close to it. The skin retains a certain amount of heat. Therefore, for lice the temperature drops slightly. For nits, this method will be completely useless - their cocoon reliably protects the nymph growing inside from many external unfavorable phenomena.
Therefore, this point is worth considering and accepting. Only linen lice can be destroyed by lowering the temperature without harm to health.
To destroy lice in this way, you need to take all fabric products outside in frosty weather, hang them up and leave them for several days. In this case, the temperature should be below -20 degrees - this is the threshold even for nits. It is worth paying attention to the fact that air humidity affects the scope and time of death of insects - the higher the percentage of humidity, the faster they die. After the required time has passed, all frozen lice and nits are carefully shaken off or removed with a brush from things directly on the street. Having returned the clothes to the house, it is recommended to carefully iron them with a hot iron, paying special attention to internal seams- it is in them that insects like to hide most of all.
There is another more quick method: all infected items are collected in plastic bag, tie tightly and place in freezer. Within a few hours, not only the adults, but also their nits are frozen. All that remains is to carefully remove their remnants from the folds and wash the clothes.
Temperature increase
If we talk about an increase in temperature, the more it differs from the human body temperature, the worse the insects feel. Temperatures from +54 degrees Celsius are considered destructive for lice.
Nits are a little more resistant to external changes, since they are wrapped in a dense cocoon that protects them from the influence of external factors. But when heated, the destructive threshold for the cocoon and nits is +60 degrees Celsius.
To combat lice, clothes and small personal hygiene items can be treated with boiling water. You can use an iron or steam cleaner to treat clothes, beds, pillows, blankets and upholstered furniture.
Read also A child has lice - what needs to be done
- American scientists have created a special hair dryer. They blow it over the scalp of a sick person for half an hour at a temperature of +50 degrees. This is not a very favorable temperature for insects, at which they weaken and cannot move quickly or hold on to their hair. This temperature is barely noticeable to a person, so he does not experience discomfort during the procedure. At the end of the treatment, insects along with nits are combed out with thick metal combs;
A special hair dryer for treating the head is currently common in clinics in the United States of America. Recently, they are just beginning to appear in some expensive dermatological centers in other countries.
Note! Despite the effectiveness of the procedures, it is recommended to combine them with mechanical treatment with a thick comb. Mechanical processing This should be done at least twice a day until after several combing procedures no lice or nits are found.
The influence of temperature fluctuations on the development of lice
More curious readers can view the table and find out how temperature changes directly affect the life activity and reproduction of lice.
The method of killing lice using temperature changes can be considered one of the best. After all, this means that pediculosis can be treated without the help of chemicals and the risk of getting serious side effects. In this case, you can use both a decrease and an increase in temperature or combine both methods.
The development cycle of lice can be divided into four stages: larva, first instar nymph, second instar nymph, third instar nymph, adult insect. The transition of the nymph to the next stage of development occurs with each molt. When molting, it sheds its hard chitinous cover, which allows it to continue to grow.
Lice development:
- It takes 5–8 days for the nit to develop.
- 1–3 days and the larva turns into a first instar nymph.
- The first instar nymph needs 5 days.
- The second instar nymph develops within 8 days.
Lifespan adult make up 30 – 40 days.
After the last molt, an adult insect appears and mating occurs within the first two days. One mating in a female louse's entire life is enough to fertilize all the eggs in the body. After which she lays eggs throughout her life.
Reference! A female head louse lays 144 eggs in her lifetime, female pubic lice- up to 50 eggs, female body louse - up to 300 eggs in her entire life. One and a half or two months after infection, a person may have a whole population of insects, and after some time they will cause pronounced symptoms of head lice.
Nits and nymphs
The development cycle from larva to adult insect is very interesting. When laying eggs, the female secretes a sticky secretion and only then the eggs are born. With the help of this substance, the egg is securely attached to the hair. After which the secretion hardens, forming a “case” (like a bag in which the egg matures). This is how a nit is formed.
After ripening, the first instar nymph hatches from the nit. It is similar to an adult insect, the only difference is its size and the inability to reproduce. Immediately after emergence, the larva begins to actively feed and molting occurs almost immediately. This is how a nymph is born.
Methods of temperature influence on lice
Like other insects, lice quickly adapt to insecticides. However, you can fight them in other ways. For example, using high or low temperatures.
Studies have shown that at a temperature of -20 degrees, the lice population completely dies within 45 minutes.
High temperatures:
- From + 40 to +45 degrees, females stop laying eggs.
- From + 40 to +60, adults and nymphs die.
- + 60 degrees and above, nits die.
There is an opinion that it is enough for a person with lice to walk without a hat in severe frost and this will help get rid of lice. But that's not true. After all, the human body cannot have a temperature with a minus sign. And the temperature on the scalp will always remain comfortable for lice. However With body louse it is quite possible to fight with temperature methods.
Exposure to high temperatures
In most cases, the body louse is exposed to temperature. Since it lives in clothes, and it can be subjected to any processing. But exposure to high temperatures (painless for humans) can also help in the fight against head and pubic lice.
The effect of high temperatures on body louse:
The effects of high temperatures on head louse:
After heat treatment, insects should be combed out with a thick comb. The procedure should be carried out three to four times a day.
Exposure to low temperatures
Fighting body louse with low temperatures:
After freezing, things should be heat treated (as described above). This approach will increase the chances of success.
Insecticides
Currently, there are a large number of remedies for nits and lice.
However, when choosing, you need to consider:
- toxicity;
- aggressiveness;
- efficiency;
- ease of use;
- possibility of allergic reactions.
Therefore, when choosing you need:
The most popular lice remedies:
- sprays;
- shampoos;
- creams;
- concentrates in the form of emulsions.
All these drugs are quite easy to use, effective and safe. The exception is concentrated emulsions; they are more aggressive and more likely to cause allergic reactions and burns (if used incorrectly).
Attention! The main danger of insecticides is allergic reactions.
They appear as:
- dandruff;
- atopic dermatitis;
- hair damage;
- pigmentation.
The most popular drugs for lice:
A very interesting product is the Robi Comb electronic comb. The principle of its operation is that it not only combs out, but also shocks insects with an electric discharge. But at the same time its effectiveness is not high.
Attention! Children under 5 years of age, pregnant women and nursing mothers are prohibited from using chemicals from lice!
Folk remedies
Still widely used in lice control. But their main drawback is that the higher the efficiency, the more harm they can cause to a person.
What is used:
Head lice infection and prevention
The easiest way to get head lice is through direct head-to-head contact. Institutions such as: gyms, swimming pools, football fields, children's summer camps, schools, kindergartens promote close contact between children and each other. Most often, pediculosis is contracted by children from 3 to 11 years old. This can occur through the sharing of combs, hair brushes, hair clips, hats, clothing, and the proximity of clothes on hangers. is not a sign of uncleanliness and poor hygiene.
Prevention:
- You should not exchange personal items: combs, hats, scarves, and you should not use someone else’s soap or towel.
- It is not advisable to leave clothes in a common locker room in close contact with the clothes of other people.
- You should check your hair and your child's hair for insects from time to time. This should be done once or twice a week. Special attention You need to focus on the areas at the back of the head and behind the ears.
- Wash your hair regularly and comb your hair with a fine comb. These measures are especially relevant when traveling and hiking with large crowds of people.
