I constantly changed everyone's sheets, laundered everything, vacuumed, etc. About four weeks ago, while doing one of my head checks, I found about six eggs. While head lice will not cause serious medical illness, the distress caused to parents and teachers can be enormous. The repulsiveness that head lice induces allows for a lot of myths to be thrown around which may hamper effective treatment of an outbreak. Therefore, one the most important aspects to treating head lice is understanding what it really is and what it really does.
Head lice are small insects which live in the scalp by periodically biting and sucking blood.
However, the bites themselves are not what makes them so bothersome for the person who has them. The itching is caused by the reaction the person has to the chemical the bug injects into the skin when it bites. Some people do not react very much to these chemicals, and consequently, they do not itch very much. The mature adult lice are able to attach the eggs, called nits, to the hair shaft with a strong gluey substance. This can make it quite difficult to remove the nits even after they have been successfully killed.