Crab lice

The crab lice or pubic lice (Phthirus pubis) are not part immediately of the sexually transmitted diseases but, however, also can be transferred by sexual contacts.

The human body can be affected by head, clothes and crab lice. In the hair children frequently capture themselves the head lice in the nursery school or in school. Body lice happen with homeless people in collecting stores and nest into the folds and seams of the clothes.

Crab lice stay with many sweat glands in body regions. They can therefore mainly be found in the pubic hair in the genital and anus area. However, you also can settle in the abdomen hairiness in the thigh area in the beard, at the eyebrows or in the armpits however not in the hair. With the strong claws at their back legs the louse can cling to the hairs. Crab lice can by close body contact, are transferred as in the case of the sexual intercourse. The transmission of the crab lice is carried out via the bedlinen, blankets or mattresses, more rarely. Unlike the other man lice the crab lice aren't carriers.

The crab lice are flat and plump, around 0.5 to 1.5 mm in size and they live on the human blood. Through what you are polar gray but they accept a rust-colored color after a "meal" they can be recognized better. You don't have any wings and are immotile relatively what their recognition aggravates.

The lice live for about three weeks and the females put their eggs down during this time. The eggs, the nits, are fastened to the hair shaft with a special secretion and hatch out after about seven days. Crab lice must suck blood still more frequently than the other louse species and can survive without a host only up to 24 hours.

Symptoms

The lice make themselves aware of themselves with an unusual pruritus which is as a rule stronger in the night to a couple of days after the infection. Sometimes one notices tiny, deep brown dots, the louse excrement, in the underwear. In addition, the bite traces of the lice leave small blue spots and eczema like changes at the skin. Nits at the hair shaft stick the hairs together.

Diagnosis

The crab lice and their eggs can be recognized with a bare eye or with a magnifying glass.

Medical treatment

The skin places affected by the crab lice can be treated with different special shampoos and creams. It has to be taken care that every remedy for pregnant women isn't appropriate. The substances are one massaged into the hairs and shall several hours have an effect. Mucosas shouldn't come with the means into touch. Who wouldn't like to use chemical means can rapidly get rid of the annoying little animals with a radical shave at the affected parts of the body. With strongly hairy persons the thigh and abdomen area also should be co-treated. The lice can carefully be removed with a forceps with nits in the eyebrows and eyelash area. Since the lice are killed at 60° degrees Celsius, C's clothes, bedlinen and towels must be washed at at least 60°. For two weeks, one must keep clothes which cannot be washed at this temperature within a plastic bag locked well or three days in the freezing compartment.

To avoid a reciprocal new infection, the partners must be treated jointly.