For generations, head-lice removal has been a major hassle. Beyond the “yuck” factor of having bugs in your child’s hair, the recommended procedure for getting rid of them involved treating your child’s hair and scalp with what amounts to a pesticide, and then carefully combing out living and dead lice and their eggs (nits) for several weeks. That’s right, weeks!
The process is difficult and time-consuming mainly due to the nits, which are easy to miss. When you miss a nit, it will hatch and you’ll have live lice on your hands again. This means that there is always a human factor in traditional lice treatment that has made it more stressful because there is no guarantee of success.
Here’s what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends for in its head-lice treatment guidelines: “After each treatment, checking the hair and combing with a nit comb to remove nits and lice every 2–3 days may decrease the chance of self–re-infestation. Continue to check for 2–3 weeks to be sure all lice and nits are gone.“
This is step 7 in the CDC’s guidelines (out of 8). If a child’s hair is long and/or curly, the process is even more time-consuming, and the risk of missing a nit or two or three is even greater.
Note that many have questioned the practical and medical benefits of using pesticide-based lice removal products. The medical questions surround the safety of dousing a child’s hair and scalp with these chemicals. The practical questions surround the need for chemicals when parents are going to have to comb out lice and eggs anyway. Lice, living or dead, are relatively easy to remove. The eggs are the hard part. Lice eggs can’t be killed by chemicals. They are extremely hard to see and are glued tightly onto hair follicles. If you’re going to have to check and comb for weeks anyway, why not skip the chemicals?
Fortunately, there is now an alternative thanks to serious scientific research and good ‘ole American entrepreneurship. Researchers studying lice at the University of Utah found that it was difficult to keep the insects alive in the arid desert climate. This led to the discovery that heated air can kill lice and eggs through dehydration. Fast forward a few years of product design, clinical trials and the FDA regulation process, and you have the AirAllé medical device—a scientifically proven, FDA-cleared medical device that kills live lice and eggs in a single treatment.
It’s fast. It’s easy. It’s safe. There are no chemicals involved, no weeks-long comb out period, and no human error to worry about.
The makers of the AirAllé device have also started the world’s largest network of professional lice treatment clinics in the world—now available in more than 100 locations in the U.S. and in 20 countries, and growing fast.
Parents, school nurses, teachers, day care providers and pediatricians, and anyone else familiar with the stress of head lice infestations, and with the uncertainty surrounding successful treatment, are thrilled to know that there is a medically sound, technologically advanced solution
