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Pubic lice

Do I re-treat if I cannot find any live ones?

Treated a week ago. I have gone over everything in good light and I cannot find anything moving, though there are still things attached to the hairs. Instructions mention a second application. Do I need it if nothing is alive?

paper_boat 3 weeks ago
NoteMember experience, not medical advice. Symptoms overlap between infections and only a test can tell them apart.

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Follow the second application if the product tells you to. The reason is eggs. Treatments are not uniformly reliable at killing eggs, so the repeat exists to catch anything that hatches after the first go.

Skipping it because you cannot see live lice is how people end up back at the start two weeks later.

The things still attached are probably empty egg cases, which stay stuck to the hair after hatching and do not brush off easily. Their presence is not evidence of an ongoing infestation, which is genuinely confusing when you are checking daily.

If you are still finding live lice after completing the full course as directed, that is the point to go back rather than buying a third box. Repeat failure sometimes means the product is not working, and sometimes means someone else in the picture was not treated.

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