What is the difference between a nit and a head louse?
A. Head Lice is the proper name for the live parasites that you may find on your child’s head. Technically, ‘nits’ are the empty egg shells which stick to the hair shafts. The empty shells are generally over 1cm away from the scalp. Lice lay their eggs as close to the warmth of the scalp as they can, so anything farther than this away from the scalp has probably been laid some time ago – long enough for the hair to grow a little bit. Anything closer could still be a full egg! Many people often refer to the live parasites as ‘nits’, mainly because many of us remember the ‘nit nurse’ that visited schools years ago. The true ‘nits’ or empty shells won’t do any harm, but can be a bit embarrassing if people see them after an infestation has been successfully removed. They are quite difficult to remove because of the strength of the glue, but can be either pulled out individually with fingers, or using a very fine tooth nit comb on wet hair can be successful.
