BMJ 2002;324:1220 ( 18 May )

Letters

Experience based treatment of head lice

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---Head lice are a familiar problem to most doctors, but especially to general practitioners and those who have children. Ten of the 17 responses to Dodd's editorial were from doctors, and all but four were from the United Kingdom. 1 2 Many respondents enthusiastically described the strategies that had worked for their children, most favouring variations on the theme of wet combing, a strategy deemed ineffective in the editorial.

Robert Bunney, one of four general practitioners responding, reports that his children repeatedly required treatment, and although the infestations usually responded to various pediculicides, the children soon became reinfected. In exasperation he turned to wet combing and kept them clear until the epidemic waned. The combing method, he adds, although initially seeming to have less success than pediculicides, will at least retain or even increase its effectiveness as parents become more skilled in using it and realise that resistance can't occur.

C . . . [Full text of this article]
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Treatment of head lice
Ciara Dodd
BMJ 2001 323: 1084. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Ibarra, J., Fry, F., Wickenden, C., Jenner, M., Franks, A. (2009). The impact of well-developed preventative strategies on the eradication of head lice. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 129: 165-173 [Abstract]  
  • Wooltorton, E. (2003). Concerns over lindane treatment for scabies and lice. CMAJ 168: 1447-1448 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Surviving Head Lice
Robyn N Wood
bmj.com, 21 May 2002 [Full text]
Community based managed care programme for for head lice is successful
Surinder S Bakhshi
bmj.com, 22 May 2002 [Full text]
Deliberate passing on of lice
Sarah Beswick
bmj.com, 24 May 2002 [Full text]
Treating lice with "lousy" products
Sheila A Skeaff
bmj.com, 22 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Beware the Lindane Nurse
Phillip J. Colquitt
bmj.com, 24 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ