When you start to see white spots in your hair or your child's hair, it can be nerve wracking. If it's dandruff, it's fairly easy to remove and won't affect your life much. If it's lice, you need to treat them immediately to get rid of them as fast as possible. While adult lice are brown and difficult to see in the hair, nits, or lice eggs are bright white and easy to confuse with simple dandruff. By combing your hair carefully, you can tell the difference between dandruff and nits and treat your hair accordingly.
Step 1
Wash your hair with your regular shampoo and conditioner as you normally would. If you have dandruff, you may notice that it's less prevalent after a vigorous washing, since the flakes don't cling to hair. If you have lice, the nits won't budge when washed with normal shampoo and conditioner only.
Step 2
Use a fine-tooth comb to carefully comb through your hair to see your scalp more clearly. As you comb, you can notice how the white spots react to the comb. If you have dandruff, the small flakes are easy to comb down the hair shaft and out of the hair. If you have lice, you'll notice that the small, white spots are stubborn and cling to the hair shaft, not moving easily.
Step 3
Locate a white spot and pluck it out with a pair of tweezers. If possible, bring the spot under a magnifying glass to examine its properties. Nits are small, round and white; they look like small eggs. You may also grasp an actual adult louse, which is brown and has six legs. You'll be able to see it moving clearly. If what you've picked out is only dandruff, it will look like a white oily scale of skin, notes MayoClinic.com.
Step 4
Discard whatever you've picked from your hair and continue combing through. In some cases, you could be suffering from dandruff and lice concurrently, so it's important that you remove at least three samples from the hair to ensure that you have only one or the other.
Step 5
Treat your hair according to your condition. If you're suffering with lice, you must kill them and their eggs before combing them out with a nit comb. Look for a medicated shampoo with at least 1 percent permethrin. Follow the package directions. Lice can live up to 30 days on a human scalp; they are extremely contagious and can carry disease, warns MedlinePlus, so it's important to act right away. You can treat dandruff by frequent washing with medicated shampoos containing salicylic acid or zinc pyrithione. Dandruff is not contagious.
Things You'll Need
- Shampoo
- Water
- Comb
- Tweezers
- Magnifying glass
