Pubic lice

Do I need to burn my bedding?

Half of what I read says wash everything on the hottest setting and half says it barely matters because they don’t survive off a person for long. I have already done four loads of laundry out of sheer panic.

kite_and_string 3 months ago

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

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second_tuesday 3 months ago

Stop washing, you’ve done plenty. They don’t survive long away from a human host, so a normal hot wash of bedding, towels and recently worn clothes is enough. Anything you can’t wash can just be set aside for a few days.

Nothing needs burning and you don’t need to shave either, which is the other thing people do out of panic. Treating properly and treating partners is what actually matters.

greytide 2 months ago

I shaved. It did nothing except make the itching worse. Learn from me.

open_window 2 months ago

The actual instructions, so you can stop guessing: bedding, towels and recently worn clothes go through a hot wash and a hot dryer cycle. Anything that cannot take that gets sealed in a plastic bag for about two weeks, or dry cleaned.

That is the whole list. They do not survive long away from a body, so the sofa, the carpets and the car do not need doing, and no amount of cleaning substitutes for treating everyone who needs treating.

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