While Ocean County celebrates the most wonderful time of year, lice are celebrating the most wonderful opportunity for spreading. The 2021 holiday season for people throughout Toms River, Barnegat, Bayville, Pine River, Forked River, Ocean Gate, Lanoka Harbor, Seaside Heights and Point Pleasant Beach is poised to become a festival of lice! Unfortunately, lice are coming back in a big way after a very quiet two years during the pandemic. Take a look at everything New Jersey residents need to know about avoiding lice during the season of being naughty or nice!
Why Lice Love the Holidays
The 2021 holiday season marks the first time that many families are getting together in a long time. All of those hugs and kisses with loved ones can actually be lice transfers if just one holiday attendee shows up with lice this year. Yes, these wingless parasites are the ultimate party crashers.
We often think of lice as something that “kids drag home from school.” However, the truth is that most lice transmissions don’t happen in school. In fact, the National Association of School Nurses notes that classroom transmission of lice is rare. The most likely place for a lice outbreak this year is at your holiday gathering. Here’s a guide on how to reduce your chances of catching lice while gathering for the holidays this year:
- Limit head-to-head contact by as much as possible. Having a cousin sleepover? Give everyone their own separate bed or mattress.
- If you have long hair, keep it tied back into ponytails, buns and braids to make it harder for lice to grab on.
- Avoid sharing coats, hats, scarves, earmuffs and gloves with others. A louse can survive for 48 hours on one of these items.
Prepare for a gathering by using Lice Lifters Mint Detangler Spray or Mint Deterrent Shampoo and Conditioner as lice deterrents. You can stock up on Lice Lifters productsfrom Amazon, Walmart and the Lice Lifters Treatment Center right there in Toms River, New Jersey! It takes just a few seconds for a louse to latch on to your hair once it lands on you. That’s about how long it takes to pose for a side-by-side selfie, give a quick hug or brush up against someone in line for the eggnog. Yes, things like brushes, hats, blankets, airplane seats and hotel upholstery can all potentially give you lice. However, head-to-head transmission accounts for 90% of all cases affecting people in Tuckerton, Lavallette, Manahawkin, Beach Haven, New Egypt and Whitesville. The simple reason why is that a louse cannot survive away from a head for more than two days. What’s more, eggs cannot hatch without the warmth from a human head!
While your family members don’t mean to drag lice to the party, the truth is that the stage for a big lice blowup at your December gathering was set all the way back in November. The return to normalcy for many during Thanksgiving 2021 meant that people were finally gathering with loved ones again. As a result, the last week of November was a big week for lice spreading. Many of the people who were infected over Thanksgiving break still don’t realize that their painfully itching scalps aren’t actually caused by the change in weather. What they think is just dry skin is actually the sting of thousands of lice bites!
Is Lice a Serious Problem? What Do You Do Once You Discover You Have Lice?
The good news is that a lice infestation isn’t considered a medical emergency. However, untreated lice can lead to scratching that ultimately causes sores that can easily become infected. Any bacteria or debris under your fingernails can create the perfect conditions for a bad infection.
How you handle lice as soon as you discover an infestation can make all the difference. The default for many families is to zip off to the local drugstore for over-the-counter lice remedies. This is the first mistake.
Drugstore lice products aren’t actually effective. These products rely on pesticides that lice have grown resistant to after decades of use. Unfortunately, they create a false sense of security that only causes people to spread lice to even more people.
There’s also the holistic route. After looking online for lice remedies that work, many people turn to natural oils and household cleansers to rid their heads of lice. The wisdom shared on the Internet is that oils and creams can “suffocate” lice. While it seems to make sense, this advice fails in one critical area. Lice can hold their breath for up to eight hours at a time. Making the oil method even less effective is the fact that lice can actually begin breathing again once the oil you lather on your head reaches your core body temperature.
Get Help for Lice in Ocean County, New Jersey
At Lice Lifters of Ocean County, the first piece of advice we give to our clients is to ask for their money back from those companies selling pharmacy products for lice. Lice Lifters Treatment Centers can help you enjoy the magic of the season by making lice do a vanishing act with our effective, quick one-time treatments. Let’s make sure you’re not turning a lice infestation from a family gathering into everyone’s problem. Book your one-time lice treatment at the first sign of itching to avoid being a lice “superspreader” at work, school and more in the new year!