Dear Mary: I’ve heard that if you regularly blow-dry your hair with an ordinary hair dryer set on high, you'll never have head lice, because lice and their eggs cannot tolerate heat. Is that true? I hope so because that special lice-killing shampoo is very expensive. —Jill
Dear Jill: You just might be on to something here! The National Center for Biotechnology Information supports what you heard. The hot, dry air produced by standard hand-held hair dryers (122 degrees F) may suffice to kill lice and their eggs on a person’s hair. Use great care if you try this method, especially if you are drying a child’s hair, as the heated air from these devices can also easily scald the hair and the scalp.
