HEAD LICE CHECK
How to tell if you have lice
When We Do Your Head Check
In the clinic, we always start with the head check. Head checks without treatment are $25. If we treat you in the clinic, the head check is included in the price of the treatment. We never do a treatment on anyone who does not have lice. We confirm with our microscope. If we find nits, that is a positive head check because people can’t catch nits — they catch live adult head lice that then lay their eggs. Eggs and nits are just different words for the same thing. Our head checks are very thorough! We section your hair and comb with the Terminator comb until we find a bug or a nit. If we find nothing, you can rest assured that you don’t have lice.
How You Can Do A Head Check At Home
While we are always happy to schedule a head check for you, we recommend that you do a quick head check at home each month on any household member at high risk. The earlier you find out about a family member having lice, the lower your chance of having had it spread to everyone else in the household.
- Buy a Terminator Comb. The Terminator comb is not a regular lice comb. It is a nit comb. There are spirals engraved around every tine and the tines are double welded to the metal handle closer together than any other lice comb on the market. There are a lot of fake look-alikes out there that don’t work well, so we do recommend getting your comb from us! Check out our video comparison of our welded terminator comb compared to the fake terminator comb. Also check out our video of us deconstructing a fake Terminator comb!
- Ensure that hair is dry and without products such as mousse or hair spray. Detangle any knots.
- Get a cup with a white interior and fill it 3/4ths of the way with water.
- Nits are laid within a quarter of an inch of the scalp surface, so you must ensure that you are inserting the comb flat against the scalp. You will check four areas:
- Nape of the neck
- behind and over each ear
- Crown of the head
- Start by holding the hair perpendicular to the scalp and insert your comb from the bottom of the nape of the neck going up and then pull the comb through the length of the hair. Check out our video of us doing a quick head check like what you would do at home.
- “Strum” the tines of the comb over the cup of water. This will flick anything in the comb into the cup.
- Repeat this process in all the areas to be checked.
- Evaluate the results. Nits float and are not translucent in the water.
Evaluating your cup
Eggs/nits will always float and will always look dark upon the water. White things and translucent things are not lice or eggs – they are skin flakes from dry scalp or dandruff. You might see a shadow from a skin flake, so turn the cup to see from other angles to be sure its not just the way the light is hitting. Living hatched lice may float or sink, but they run away from light and movement, so it’s less likely you will see one. You might see other things in the cup like lint, tiny scabs, or glitter. If you are unsure of what you are looking at, take a picture of the suface of the water and email it to us. We will look for free! Pictures must be very clear for us to be able to evaluate.
Size and color of lice
Head lice can be difficult to spot visually, even when the head is closely inspected. They’re very small tan-brown insects that range from the size of a pinhead to the size of a sesame seed. With dyed hair, lice and nits get dyed the same color as your hair and become almost impossible to find with the naked eye. Use the comb!
Do lice itch?
The most common symptom of any type of lice is itching. Lice bites cause an allergic reaction that causes this itchy feeling. However, you may not notice any symptoms for up to six weeks the first time you get lice, and around 50% of people will never itch at all.
Other signs
You may also notice the appearance of lice eggs, or small objects in your hair that you aren’t able to brush out. a gritty feeling on the hair strands, or you may find an actual live bug. Lice also commonly cause a case of dry scalp, which might also indicate the presence of lice because scratching causes tiny sores. Use the comb and check.
How to be sure?
The only way to be sure someone has head lice is to find a live louse or an egg by combing their hair with a special fine-toothed comb. It is very difficult to properly check yourself since lice don’t hang out around the front perimeter near your face. Enlist the help of a good friend or call 865-245-5353 for an appointment at the clinic. If your child has lice, we definitely recommend you get a professional head check with us since parents generally have a newer infestation that may not yet be apparent. You don’t want to wait for symptoms to appear since once they do, you may have swapped lice back to your child.
At Knoxville Lice Clinic, a head check is the absolute first step we take to determine if an infestation is present before treating.