Complications of pediculosis: can lice bites be dangerous?

Pediculosis can be extremely damaging to the body, although the condition is often not taken seriously by patients or by some physicians. It is generally accepted that lice bites cause only untidy scratching & nbsp; and unpleasant sensations of itching on the skin. But complications of pediculosis can also be expressed by secondary infection of combed places, & nbsp; and the development of an allergy to lice bites, and even the addition of quite dangerous infectious diseases carried by these parasites. If a patient, against the background of a severe pustular rash, complains of severe malaise, then the doctor is obliged, among other versions of the disease, to consider the likelihood of a complication of pediculosis.

 Complications of pediculosis caused by a reaction to the saliva of the parasite

When bitten by parasites on human skin, they secrete a special enzyme into the resulting wound, which prevents blood from clotting and allows them to feed. This enzyme causes severe itching & nbsp; skin at the site of a lice bite. Since parasites multiply rapidly, there are many of them on the body, and each parasite leaves a bite on the skin several times a day and secretes its enzyme there, the itching of the skin sometimes becomes unbearable.

Complications of head lice caused by a person's reaction to lice bites and the enzymes they secrete with saliva can be as follows:

• pustular inflammation of combed skin;
• increase in body temperature;
• sleep disorder;
• increased nervousness and irritability, up to severe mental disorders.

In the absence of proper therapy and care for inflamed and scratched skin, its purulent lesion (pyoderma) may develop.

 Allergic reaction as a special complication of head lice

Lice bites can cause a severe allergic reaction, which manifests itself with the following symptoms:

• swollen lymph nodes;
• multiple rashes all over the body, especially severe – in places with the highest concentration of parasites;
• temperature increase;
• swelling of the tissues at the sites of bites.

In young children, lice bites can cause constant crying for no apparent reason.

 Severe infectious diseases as complications of head lice

The most severe and dangerous complication of head lice  become infectious diseases, the carriers of which by nature are lice. Massive pandemics are known from history that took the lives of many people – typhus, relapsing fever, Volyn fever and some others.  Signs of such a complication that should alert the doctor:

• severe back pain, headache;
• chills and fever;
• pinkish rash all over the body (may appear 2-3 weeks after infection).

Such complications of pediculosis tend to have two or three waves of exacerbations, after which recovery occurs.

So the doctor must be very  be alert to symptoms of rash, itching, and fever, and remember that lice bites can cause severe complications of head lice.