What’s true, and what isn’t

No — and this is the single most damaging myth about head lice. Lice attach just as easily to freshly washed hair. It spreads through direct head-to-head contact, which is what happens when children lean together over a phone. It is not a hygiene failure and it is not your fault.

Overwhelmingly by head-to-head contact. Lice cannot jump and cannot fly — they crawl. Sharing hats, brushes, or pillows can transmit it, but far less often than people assume. If your child has it, the most likely source is another head they were touching.

Not long. Head lice need to feed frequently and do not survive well away from a scalp — generally a day or two at most. This is why the frantic whole-house deep clean is usually unnecessary. Wash recent bedding, and stop there.

Yes. Anyone with hair can. It is most common in children simply because of how they play, but we treat parents, teenagers, and grandparents regularly.

Often not as well as the box suggests. Many pharmacy treatments rely on pesticides that lice populations have developed substantial resistance to. They also do nothing about the part that actually matters — the comb-out. A treatment without a thorough comb-out rarely finishes the job.

Smothering approaches can slow lice down, but they do not reliably kill eggs, and people usually give up before completing enough cycles. If a home remedy has not worked after one attempt, more of it will not fix it. That is normally when families call us.

Almost never. Because lice die quickly off the head, the enormous cleaning operation people are told to perform mostly buys peace of mind rather than results. Wash recent bedding, clean hairbrushes, and put your energy into checking heads instead.

Bright light, damp hair, and a proper metal nit comb — not fingers and a phone torch. Work in small sections from the scalp outward, wiping the comb on white tissue after each pass. Pay attention behind the ears and at the nape of the neck. If you are not sure what you are looking at, book a professional check.