Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
close window
Housecall Archives
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
close window
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Lifestyle and home remedies
By Mayo Clinic staffYou can get rid of pubic lice with a patient, thorough approach that involves cleaning yourself and any personal belongings that may be contaminated.
These steps may help you eliminate lice infestations:
- Use lotions and shampoos. Choose from among several over-the-counter lotions and shampoos (Nix, Rid, others) designed to kill lice. Apply the product according to instructions. Typically, you apply them and wash them off in five to 10 minutes. You may need to repeat treatment with the lotion or shampoo in seven to 10 days.
- After shampoo treatment, rinse your hair with vinegar. Grasp a lock of hair with a cloth saturated with vinegar and strip the lock downward to remove nits. Repeat until you've treated all the hair in this way. Or soak hair with vinegar and leave it on for a few minutes before combing. Then towel-dry the hair. These methods can help remove nits from the hair shaft. Cutting hair very short also can help.
- Comb wet hair. Use a fine-toothed or nit comb, fingernails or tweezers to physically remove nits from wet hair. Repeat every two to three days until all lice and nits are gone.
- Wash contaminated items. Wash bedding, clothing and towels used in the two days prior to treatment with hot, soapy water — at least 130 F (54 C) — and dry them at high heat for at least 20 minutes.
- Dry-clean or seal unwashable items. If you can't wash an item, have it dry-cleaned or place it in an airtight bag for two weeks.
- Vacuum. Give floors and furniture a good vacuuming.
