Head lice gone today — across Los Angeles County

The one that removes every louse and every egg, and does not need repeating. That is the honest answer, and it is why professional removal exists: health services recommend combing lice and nits out with a fine-toothed nit comb, but as a home routine that means repeating it every few days for two to three weeks. Miss a few eggs on one pass and the cycle restarts. We do the whole comb-out properly in a single visit, mechanically, without pesticide shampoos — flat rate, agreed before we start.

Every louse and every egg has to physically leave the head. Products can kill live lice, but eggs glued to the hair shaft are what bring an infestation back, so removal is the part that actually ends it. The standard home approach is a nit comb through wet, conditioned hair, section by section, repeated on a schedule across two to three weeks. Everyone in the household should be checked at the same time — lice move between family members long before anyone notices, and treating one person while missing another is the most common reason it comes back.

They can kill live lice, but they are not the whole job. Health guidance is clear that combing the nits out matters as much as anything you apply — MedlinePlus advises combing every two to three days for two to three weeks, and the NHS sets out wet combing on days 1, 5, 9 and 13 with a check at day 17. Most families who call us have already tried a kit; what usually went wrong is not the bottle, it is that a thorough comb-out is genuinely hard to do on your own child, in your own bathroom, over three weeks.

Look for nits before you look for lice — the insects move and hide, the eggs do not. Nits are small white or yellow-brown specks glued firmly to the hair very close to the scalp, most often behind the ears and at the nape of the neck. If a speck slides off easily it is dandruff or hair product; a nit does not budge. Itching is the usual first sign, but it can take four to six weeks after lice arrive before the scalp reacts at all, so no itching does not mean no lice. If you are not sure, that is what a lice check is for — call and we will tell you honestly, including if you do not have it.

In the vast majority of cases, the next day — and we will give you a written note for the school if you need one. Worth knowing: the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages sending children home over head lice, and the NHS says there is no need to keep a child off school. Lice cannot jump, hop or fly; they spread through close, prolonged head-to-head contact. And it has nothing to do with cleanliness — as MedlinePlus puts it, personal hygiene has nothing to do with getting head lice. Clean hair is no protection whatsoever.