How Do Pubic Lice Infest Hair?

Pubic lice live on the body and pubic hair and are most commonly transmitted during sexual contact. The best way to detect a pubic lice infestation is by looking for live adult lice and viable egg cases on hair shafts. Empty egg cases are not indicative of an active infection. Treatment for lice infestation is different from that for head lice. Treatment for pubic lice will depend on the type of lice that has infested the pubic hair.

Pubic lice are tiny parasitic insects. They live in the pubic area and cause itching and red spots. They may also live in other areas of the body with coarse hair, such as the eyebrows and eyelashes. They are gray or brown in color and are 1.1 to 1.8 millimeters long. They are very difficult to spot without a magnifying glass, but you should look for them if you suspect you might have them.

Once you have discovered the lice, the first symptoms you will notice are itching and scratching. You will also notice that they have nits attached to their legs. These nits are the larvae of the pubic louse, which is an immature stage. They take two to three weeks to mature into adult lice. The symptoms may not be immediately noticeable, but they can begin to occur as early as two weeks after the lice nits hatch.

The biological evolution of head lice and pubic lice shows that they have divergent morphologically. Nevertheless, both types of lice have been recorded in the human population for more than 10,000 years. Several outbreaks have occurred in the United States and Europe, although the records are incomplete. A recent study investigated the prevalence of pubic lice infestation in US college students. The research involved an online survey of 817 students at a mid-sized East Coast university. Of these, 35 reported experiencing pubic lice infestation.