Lice Clinics of America – Portland Shares Summer Lice Prevention Tips

Lice don’t take summer off, according to Mark Meyer, owner of Lice Clinics of America® –  Portland. In fact, summer months often spur an uptake in cases of head lice when children spend an extended amount of time together with sleepovers, camps, and family vacations.

“Summer vacations when kids are sleeping together, or staying with other families, are opportunities for the spread of head lice,” Mark Meyer said. “Here are a few summer lice prevention tips you can do to decrease the odds that your child won’t bring lice home from summer sleepovers and vacations.”

Preventative Screenings

First and foremost, get a professional lice screening before and after vacations or camps. Make sure that your child doesn’t already have head lice before you leave. Many children have lice without knowing it. It can take up to two weeks before symptoms like itching start to occur. Check again when you get home.

Decrease Your Odds

Prevention products used weekly decrease the odds of a lice infestation. Our clinic offers non-toxic prevention products and summer lice prevention tips from our experts to support our community.

Don’t Share Hair Care

Make sure your children have their own hair care tools and accessories like combs, brushes, clips and anything else they use on their hair. Sharing items that contain strands of hair is one way that lice can spread.

Lice Can Swim!

If children will be swimming, they shouldn’t share towels at the pool or beach. Lice can hold their breath for up to eight hours, so if your child uses a towel that others have used to dry their hair, it could be an opportunity for head lice to climb on board.

Sharing Is Not Always Caring

In general, discourage sharing. This can be a difficult summer lice prevention tip for parents to give children. We all want our children to be kind and to share. But in addition to hair care products, towels, pillows, hats, scarves, jackets and any other products where detached strands of hair might be found can be a source of head lice. Because head lice can’t live anywhere but on a human scalp, if they are on hair that falls off of someone, they will do whatever they can to return to a human head.

You Didn’t Do Anything Wrong

Finally, if your child does come home with head lice, don’t panic or punish yourself. “You and your child didn’t do anything wrong,” Mark Meyer said. “12 million people get head lice each year in the United States alone. It’s like catching a cold.”

We want you to know that getting rid of head lice is easier than ever, thanks to Lice Clinics of America’s FDA-cleared solution, the AirAllé® medical device. It uses precision controlled heated air to dehydrate lice and eggs and has been clinically shown to kill live lice and more than 99 percent of nits in a single treatment that takes about an hour, and the service is guaranteed to be effective.

“If you come in for a lice screening and we find head lice or nits on your child, we can treat on the spot, and you’ll leave our clinic lice-free, guaranteed,” Mark Meyer said.

Lice Clinics of America Portland is located at 5201 SW WESTGATE DRIVE SUITE 106 PORTLAND, OR 97221 and is open seven days a week by appointment. Call  503-966-9994 or email  info@LiceClinicsPortland.com for more information or to schedule an appointment.