In addition to intense itching lice can cause other symptoms such as a tickling feeling of something moving on your head hair or body sores that develop from scratching itches irritability difficulty sleeping red bumps on your head neck shoulders or pubic area the appearance of lice eggs or . Adult lice have six legs with claws at the end that allow them to latch tightly to your hair typically adult head lice live 30 days when stuck to your head if they fall off they die within 1 to. Head lice are small wingless parasitic insects that live on the scalp they can be difficult to spot because theyre only 2 3 mm long close examination of the scalp and carefully combing the hair are the only ways to check successfully. You can check for lice with either dry or wet hair if youre checking with wet hair wash and condition your hair before going over your hair with a comb use an ordinary brush to detangle your hair then switch to the fine toothed comb and start combing at the front middle of the scalp