Children and adults can both experience the effects of lice, but children are infected by them more often.
Despite popular belief, head lice are not a result of somebody not being clean.
The opposite is actually true.
People with clean hair are more likely to catch lice than people with unwashed hair.
This is because it's more difficult for lice to latch on to unwashed hair due to the dirt and natural oil that our scalp secretes.
When someone has clean hair, the lice can latch on to the shaft easily and feed without interference.
So how do we define lice? Lice are oviparous parasites which live off human blood.
They normally feed about 4 or 5 times a day which is why they need a constant supply of blood.
If they don't have a host, they will generally die within 24 hours.
Lice have a strong desire to reproduce, and this isn't a good thing considering a female louse can lay between 50 and 150 eggs during her lifespan which is only about 4 weeks.
It's astounding how fast they can multiply.
To give you an example, if you have 18 lice on your head with half being females, you can expect approximately 1350 more lice as a result of these breeding.
I don't have to do the math for you to understand that when the 1350 reproduce their will be a whole heck of a lot of them.
Not only are lice a nuisance, but they are very contagious.
They love nothing more than to find new hosts, so they begin forming other colonies.
Add this to the fact that they reproduce at an astonishing rate, and you will see why they're hard to get rid of.
This is why you need to take extreme caution when someone in your household is infected.
The most obvious symptom of lice is itching.
This is due to the fact that their saliva has chemicals in it which cause itching.
These chemicals are used to break down blood making it easier for them to feed, but causes their host extreme discomfort.
In addition to their saliva, the feces they leave behind while feeding can also cause the scalp to itch.
These areas will usually have red patches or welts from the irritation.
If you see red welts behind the ears or the nape of the neck of someone suspected of having head lice, it's very likely they are infected.
The itching is unbearable which causes the infected person to constantly scratch leading to flesh wounds.
These wounds will generally become puss boils that add pain to the equation.
Once this stage is reached, it's best to see a physician immediately.
What happens is when the boils begin to heal they turn in to scabs that end up getting scratched causing even more anguish and greatly increases the chances of getting an infection.
It's best to take action before this phase is ever reached.