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Bedpost pediculosis
Last reviewed: 05.07.2025
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Pediculosis corporis is caused by body lice, which live in the seams of clothing and cause skin lesions in the form of papules, hyperemic spots or blisters with a bloody crust in the center.
Causes and pathogenesis of body lice
The body louse (pediculus humanus corporis or pediculus vestimentorum) is 3-4.5 mm long, i.e. somewhat larger than the head louse, and the segments of the back of the body are not as pointed. Both species are actually subspecies that can interbreed. Body lice are rarely found under normal living conditions. They are usually common among homeless people, in times of need and war, and are often found together with head and pubic lice. Body lice are not located on the body, but in adjacent clothing. Nits are located in the form of beads in the seams of clothing. Body lice reproduce very quickly.
[ Symptoms of body lice
The bite initially goes unnoticed, the secretion of the saliva of the lice leads to redness, blisters and nodules with very strong itching. At the sites of the bites, hyperemic spots, papules, small blisters with a hemorrhagic crust in the center appear. The skin soon becomes covered with striated scratching effects, which often become secondarily impetiginated. The resulting "vagant skin" (cutis vagantium) also has numerous light scars with surrounding hyper- and depigmentation. This picture is generally quite characteristic.
Body lice transmit rickettsiosis, typhus, and relapsing fever. Volyn (trench or five-day) fever is caused by rickettsia (R. quintana), which multiply in the intestines of lice and are excreted with their waste products. Pediculus lice are the source of human infection with epidemic typhus, which is also caused by rickettsia (Rickettsia prowaceki). Relapsing fever is caused by spirochete (Spirochaeta recurrens), which enters the stomach of the insect with blood and is quickly evacuated from it. The patient becomes infected on the sixth day after the insect gets on the skin, when it is crushed and the spirochetes are rubbed into damaged skin, wounds, and scratches.
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Treatment of head lice
Linen is boiled or disinfected. If necessary, contact insecticides can be used in the form of a spray. The use of Yakutia powder is justified as a preventive measure. Treatment of skin manifestations is carried out according to general therapeutic rules depending on the relevance and secondary infection of eczematous manifestations.
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