Discover how you can get rid of body lice by using natural home remedies.
When you heard about LICE, small creepy insects are the first thing that is going to come probably in your thoughts. True! This article is about those insects.
If you are aware of what they do to your body, this article might help you find some solutions. If not, you might find out how to prevent it.
Table of Contents
Home Remedies For Body Lice
1. Neem Leaf Extract
Neem has numerous medicinal qualities. It is an excellent antibacterial and antiseptic plant. Take 250 grams of neem leaves and boil in 2 liters of water. Fill this in the bathtub mixing it with warm water.
Soak your body in this prepared liquid for about half an hour. Try this every single day until all the lice and on your skin are effectively removed. Another effective way might be to treat body lice with neem by making it into a paste and applying all over your body.
Leave the paste until it becomes dry and scrub it off before you take a bath.
Body lice also affect your clothes and bed linen. Therefore, disinfecting those items is also important if you want to stop their recurrence. While you soak yourself, also soak your clothes in hot neem water for an hour.
After that, soak in hot detergent water for another half an hour. Now wash it thoroughly with a brush to remove all body lice completely from those items.
2. Apricot Leaf Extract
When the lice infestation becomes very severe, the itching will cause your skin to crack. This will lead to lesions or formation of wounds. This is a very difficult condition that will eventually lead to skin infections.
Apricot leaves are the best solution to treat these lesions. Gather fresh apricot leaves and extract its juice. Apply this paste on the lesion and leave it on for one hour. Afterward, wash the affected area with warm water.
The lesions will start drying up soon and finally disappear.
3. Vinegar
The itching caused by body lice could be unbearable at times. This scratching would also lead you to skin lesions and infections. It is important to get rid of both the scratch and body lice altogether.
For this, all you need to do is mix vinegar and vegetable oil in the ratio 1:2(1 cup vinegar and 2 cups of vegetable oil). Apply this mix on infected areas of your body and let it stay for half an hour.
Vinegar is acidic which will kill all the body lice. The acidity of vinegar may cause harm to your skin and hence to protect your skin while doing this, mixing with vegetable oil will prevent any such consequence.
Vegetable oil will act as a protective layer and prevent skin damage that the vinegar might likely cause.
4. Drumstick Leaf And Sesame Oil
Take 500 grams of drumstick leaves and extract the juice from them. Take equal amount (nearly 500 grams) of sesame seeds oil and mix it with the extracted drumstick juice.
Heat the mixture until all the water evaporates. Let it cool, and after cooling, apply to the lesions on your skin. Keep applying it two times every day for two weeks.
This application will kill the body lice due to antibacterial qualities of drumstick and will also prevent infections.
Sesame oil has been used for centuries in healing wounds and hence it is great for healing lesions.
5. Calamine Lotion
Body lice may cause severe itching and result in skin infections. Putting an end to itching might prove a huge relief in itself. Scratching will form cuts on your skin and make it conducive for any bacteria to enter your body.
To prevent itching and kill body lice, calamine lotion may be used. Apply it on the infected area and let it dry. Calamine will subside itching on your lesions and will prevent the infected person from scratching the skin.
Calamine will also help kill body lice by drying it and trapping the lice in the dry lotion. Keep applying calamine lotion continuously for removing the infections completely.
6. Essential Oil/ Tea Tree Oil
Essential oils have numerous skin benefits, and they also help in healing and soothing the damaged skin. It also helps you in repairing damaged skin tissues which may be caused as a result of scratching.
Tea tree oil has antibacterial qualities and helps in killing body lice very effectively. Mix tea tree oil with water in the ratio 1:2(as described previously) and apply it all over your body. Leave it on without washing. The antibacterial property of tea tree oil will help you in removing body lice completely.
This has to be done several times a day for one week. Tea tree oil could also be used for disinfecting your clothes. Add a few drops of it to the hot water you use while washing clothes. Soak the clothes in it for half an hour before you start washing with detergent.
7. Hot Water
Disinfecting your clothes and bed sheets is as significant as removing body lice from the body. This will take care of any chances of recurring of the lice. Wash all your clothes with hot water, including all clothes even of your family members.
Put the clothes in boiling water and let them stay for ten minutes (only applies only to clothes those can withstand heat). Once it cools down, use a strong detergent for soaking these clothes for another half to one hour.
Wash these clothes with warm water. You can continue this for one more to make sure that all your clothes are completely disinfected by any germs not only body lice.
8. Fenugreek Seeds And Mustard Oil
Fenugreek seeds are antiseptic in nature with antibacterial and antifungal properties. They help the kill body lice efficiently curing it. Moreover, the pungent smell of mustard oil helps additionally to kill the lice and their eggs.
Soak one tablespoon of fenugreek seeds in water overnight (to make them soft). Now grind them to make a smooth paste. Add two tablespoons of mustard oil to this paste. Mix well the paste and apply it all over your body.
Let it stay for half an hour and then have a bath or wash with soap water. Applying this product every day will help a lot to get rid of body lice.
9. Milk, Coconut Oil, And Camphor
Pour one tablespoon of coconut oil in a cup of milk and add one teaspoon of camphor to it. Mix well and massage the lotion all over your body 30 minutes before taking a bath.
Everyday application of this product helps you get rid of body lice quickly.
10. Yoghurt And Lavender
Yogurt and lavender are a very good combination to kill the body lice faster. Mix 1 tablespoon of lavender oil in 1 cup of yogurt. Lavender oil is antiseptic and has an antibacterial property which will kill body lice quickly.
Moreover, yogurt will help in cleaning your skin intensely and prevent any further attacks of body lice.
Read On
Lice infection on the body is also known as pediculosis. It is a very common disease. The worldwide cases number in the hundreds of millions. Body lice may occasionally cause illnesses such as typhus, relapsing fever, and trench fever.
A lice infestation is an itchy experience that can be embarrassing more than a medical condition. There can be many types of lice infections. Unique parasites can cause each of them.
Let’s have a look at major of them:
a) Head Lice (Pediculus Humans Capital)
It is one of the most common infestations. It favors no particular part of the society. Head lice are easily caught from clean hair. Greasy, dirty hair is harder for them to cling too. So you may not care if you don’t have very clean maintained hair.
b) Body Lice (Pediculus Humans Corporis)
Body lice are small insects that are wingless and suck blood. These live in the body of an infected human, in their clothing or bed, and particularly the seams. Body lice may spread from one person to another.
They are normally associated with crowded living conditions, also unhygienic. Also, they particularly exist in conditions of social upheaval like natural disasters or war zone.
Very often the body lice can be clearly visible in your beard, eyelashes, and eyebrows. They bite the skin and feed on small quantities of blood. This will lead you to cause persistent scratching and itching. Vagabond disease may occur due to long-term exposure to body lice.
c) Pubic Lice (Pediculosis Pubis)
Pubic lice are parasites that are found in your pubic or genital area. Pubic lice infestation is worldwide. It affects people of all races and ethnic groups. Even none of the levels of the society are spared.
This article focuses mostly on BODY LICE. So let’s get into some details of that.
Lice infestation is very different and unique human experience compared to other diseases or conditions. Lice will not jump or fly from one host to the others. Also, animals cannot be a mode of transfer of lice.
They are only transferred from one person to the other via direct contact and non-living objects like clothes, upholstery, daily use items and bed as they can survive for 1 or 2 days without feeding on human blood.
How To Find Out If I Have A Lice Infection?
The typical characteristics of a body lice bite are:
- A small red area initially appears.
- The red area may rise into a small lump.
- The area will become inflamed.
- The bite will cause irritation and also severe itching.
- Secondary infections may result from continuous scratching.
What Are The Probable Causes Of Body Lice?
You are likely to catch body lice by coming in direct contact with someone previously having lice. You may also get it from using an infected person’s clothes and towels or sharing a bed with them.
You are very likely to catch body lice if you do not bathe regularly or wash your clothes often. Also, probable causes include living in close and overcrowded conditions.
Lice will not last long if you:
- Start bathing regularly.
- Wash your clothes and bed sheets at least once per week
- Placing dirty clothes in a hot dryer helps kill the lice living on clothing.
Now that we are clear on how and what BODY LICE can do to you, let’s find out the natural remedies that can help you with that:
A Final Word Of Caution
Home remedies are the ultimate first aid to any condition, an instant relief in many cases. But do not completely rely on them. In this case, if you are sure about being infested by body lice, then you may proceed without any worries, in trying out any remedy.
But if you have the slightest of doubt in whether it is body lice, or any other insect, or any other infection instead, it is most advisable to get checked by a professional.
Also, do not try any two remedies simultaneously. If you already applied one, stick to it. Changing or mixing up certain substances may worsen the conditions.
Reference: CDC GOV
