Pubic lice

Pubic lice are not linked to poor personal hygiene.



They are spread through close body contact with someone who has them, most commonly sexual contact.

The lice crawl from hair to hair but can’t fly or jump. They need human blood to survive, so generally only leave the body to move from one person to another.

Pubic lice don’t live on other animals such as cats or dogs.

It’s also possible for pubic lice to be spread through sharing clothes, towels and bedding.

Symptoms

The most common symptom of pubic lice is itchy red spots. The itching is caused by an allergy to the louse saliva or poo.

It can take 1 to 3 weeks for itching to develop after the first infestation, and it’ll usually be worse at night.

Adult pubic lice are tiny – smaller than a match head. They’re grey-brown in colour and have 6 legs. The 2 pairs of back legs are much larger and look like the pincer claws of a crab. They use these to grasp onto your hair.

Pubic lice eggs are tiny, yellow-white ovals, which are stuck firmly to the base of your hairs.

You may also notice the following symptoms:

dark brown or black powder on your skin or in your underwear (this is louse droppings) blue spots on your skin where the lice have been, particularly on your thighs and lower stomach, caused by bites from the lice specks of blood in your underwear, if you have been scratching a lot nits (empty eggshells) that look like white oval dots attached to the base of your hairs