Lice!! ACK!

[NurseMama]

My second grade daughter has lice! No freaking doubt. She was complaining yesterday of an itchy scalp, I looked but didn't see any bugs. Last night I peeked in on her after she was asleep and she was itching in her sleep! Today, I looked at her hair in the sunlight and I saw little brown nits on the hairs close to the scalp. So, the whole family is getting the coconut oil (with tea tree EO) overnight treatment and the house is getting deloused tomorrow. What sucks is that I am going to have to take all laundry to the laundrymat tomorrow because our dryer is on the fritz (repair appt is scheduled for Tues). I need the dryer heat to kill the eggs!

I know I saw in a post on the old board something about a delousing schedule? Anyone know where to find that? I have been searching with no luck.

This is the first time that I have had to deal with lice since I was a child. I remember terrible smelling shampoos, combs that hurt my tender head, and it ALWAYS coming back. I am really hoping that the coconut oil and a thorough cleaning of the house will be enough to prevent re infestation.

[Flynn]

To stop it from coming back, you might like to keep her hair entirely up. The source is almost certainly school. If you've got her hair up, bunned, and, if you really want to go the whole hog, slicked back with a bit of oil or commercial product of your choice, you should drastically reduce the chances of her getting it again. Lice like loose, clean, dry hair.

[Aer]

I feel for you. My son had to have his 2nd birthday party cancelled because of lice. The horrible thing is, the child he got it from, had a mother who knew her son had lice the whole time, and didn't even tell me. I found out through mutual friends that she had known two days prior to our kids playdate. It was a pain to get rid of lice on a toddler. I hope you the best, I wish I could give you some advice, but I just used the drugstore treatments.

[Armelle]

I have had lice as an adult, with long hair, and I am next door to phobic after living through those times. :blueeek: I got them the first time from a movie theatre. After that, from my daughter who had brought them home from school.

Some advice I have:
Get strong delousing kits and use them on everyone. You will probably need to use the detangling lotion to make things easier.
Use the finest toothed lice comb you can find.
Assume everyone has lice.
Wash bedding in hot water. Any that can't be washed need to be put in garbage bags for a few weeks.
Wash all towels after one use.
Stuffed animals need to go into plastic garbage bags for a few weeks. If this is not doable, you'll need to put the favorite toy in the freezer at least overnight (it might be longer, you'll want to check.)
Vacuum often and throughly. Vacuum all of the furniture and your car seats.

I have learned that lice prefer clean hair since they can not breathe or cling to oily hair.

Good luck!

[DragonLady]

We went through the lice thing a few years ago. And everyone in the family had long hair. :(

I used the pesticide shampoos on everyone. They worked for everyone except me. Even when I left it on three times as long as the maximum time recommended, the little things were still crawling around. I tried every brand on the market, I washed and re-washed and had the carpets steam-cleaned. I bagged up all the toys and stuffed animals and put them out in the storage shed. Still, we found lice. I itched and in my sleep I would scratch 'till I woke up bloody.

We suffered with them for almost three months before I hit on a method that worked. I bought two big bottles of Suave coconut shampoo, two of the tiniest nit combs I could find in stainless steel, and found a wide-mouth jar with a lid.

I washed the hair, then put a handful of conditioner on it. Once I worked it in, I combed out the critters and the nits. The conditioner knocks them senseless, so they can be combed right out. They look dead, but they're not, so I used a napkin or Kleenex to wipe them out of the comb and drop 'em in the jar. Then it was just a matter of flushing the critters and bleaching out the jar.

I had to do that every single night for two weeks, then waited a few days and did it again.

[Addy]

I feel for you. My son had to have his 2nd birthday party cancelled because of lice. The horrible thing is, the child he got it from, had a mother who knew her son had lice the whole time, and didn't even tell me. I found out through mutual friends that she had known two days prior to our kids playdate. It was a pain to get rid of lice on a toddler. I hope you the best, I wish I could give you some advice, but I just used the drugstore treatments.

I went through this with one of my friends before. You wanna talk about mad! My poor kids were drenched in lice and I had 3 eggs and a lice bug in my hair. DH didn't get it but yeah, made me mad that she didn't say her lil boy had it either! :mad:

Whoever get's it needs to tell others they have it so it doesn't spread. Lice is nothing to be ashamed of but it is the DICKENS to get rid of so tell people when you get it so others won't get it!

[oogie]

Piece of advice - rinse with vinegar. Loosens any eggs from the hair shaft. Also comb daily, several times a day. Boil wash everything you can- put plush toys in dryer for up to 2 hours. Blow dry hair after treatment- little buggers hate heat.

I recently had a school nurse say dd had this, took her to the doctor cause I didn't see them. Doctor couldn't find them either. Daughter wasn't itching or anything. Needless to say I was a touch peeved. I still went through the paces just in case. At least now the house is clean for fall, right?

[jasper]

As a summer camp counselor and camp director, I lived through the lice episode more than once. Here's my tip on the laundry front: the bugs can't survive long without human contact. If you have clothes, toys, pillows and bedding that you do not want to treat with the hot wash and really hot dryer, you can bag them up in trash bags for a week or so.

ETA: I see my tip was posted above :D But it's worth a second post I think. Saved us from shrinking all our t-shirts in the hot dryer and having to swamp a whole laundromat with 20 camp counselors' bedding and clothes at the same time.

[Merlin]

Loads of conditioner, loads of combing with a nit comb, eventually you weed them out.

Nobody will die, even if you view them as a bit 'eeeueeewww' frankly they're not that big a deal once you get the numbers down enough for the itching to stop; then it's just a case of mopping up the stragglers...

[Gladtobemom]

I've got lots of kids.

We've had a few bouts over the years. I've learned that the Licemeister (http://www.headlice.org/licemeister/index.htm) comb is the best one out there. It gets everything. It comes with a card that shows you how to recognize a nit and a lice.

You can coat your hair well with oil, then comb in sections. I've also used conditioner mixed with oil

I find that I can put stuffed animals and pillows in the dryer on hot for a little while. You can steam iron the mattress and put on a dusmite cover. (this is good for bedbugs OR lice.

I buy my kids pretty big backpacks and have them put their coats IN the backpacks at school, instead of hanging them on the hooks. Never share hats or combs or wigs, etc. Also . . . when they go to the movies . . . take along an unlined windbreaker and drape it over the seat. (the only time I've gotten them, that's where. My friend and I met at the movies and BOTH of us ended up with them.

Check your kids OFTEN.

[Medievalmaniac]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I'm horrified on your behalf, poor you! What a headache (literally and figuratively!) I hope it gets resolved soon!! :(

[Speckla]

We had the same experience when my son was in second grade. He kept lice for a whole year. We couldn't figure out why. He had a friend whose mother would just comb through but not wash or treat anything else. I got it twice. The last time I cut my BSL, nonchemically treated hair into a pixie cut - before I found out the source. After treating my son and knowing he was licefree, I started using an olive oil based gel on both our heads. It conditioned our hair and made it impossible for lice to get a grip. We haven't had any problems and that was 6 years ago.

[redwoman]

Oh you poor you!! What a drag to have to deal with all that. Good luck in getting rid of the horrid little creatures.

[NurseMama]

I try to avoid pesticides so I am not using the commercial delousing shampoos. I used a coconut oil and tea tree EO treatment on Sunday on everyone and carefully combed out her hair with a plastic nit comb (I really want a stainless steel one now though!). I wasn't able to remove all the eggs with the first combing and my ex was supposed to do a second comb out Sunday evening (I had to work Sunday night), but she came down with a stomach bug and he got caught up dealing with that and FORGOT the second comb out! Of course, he also forgot to tell me that he hadn't done the comb out :rolleyes: and I got a call today from the school nurse saying that she found nymphs (the newly hatched lice) in her hair. I worked Monday night as well, so I was sound asleep snuggling with my 4yo who has the same stomach bug that she had on Sunday... (ahh, the joys of a new school year and the new bugs that come along with it)

Sigh. So now she is home with another round of coconut oil/ tea tree EO on her head and I am having to rewash everything. Ggggrrrr. I only got about an hour of sleep and between the stomach bug and the lice I have done about 8 loads of laundry in the last few days. I have to admit that I am a bit tired of dealing with this problem.

Does anyone know the post from the old board about coconut oil lice treatment which had a suggestion of treatment days based on the life cycle of the louse? I am pretty sure that days 1 and 3 are on there, but I can't remember the rest. Thanks!

[Dez]

i came across this info awhile ago on here from another post like thishttp://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=539&highlight=lice
i booked marked in case i ever needed it. LOL

and *shudder* see i knew i could get something from the movie theatre seats! It really grosses me out to have my hair touching the seats.

[Chibbylick]

When we have to deal with lice, we do the combing thing 3 weeks in a row. We make our own lice zapping conditioner mix by adding eucalyptus oil - 100ml conditioner, and 2ml pure oil. We shake the mix up, and slather it all over the hair. Then we do the slow combing deal. The mix stuns the lice, and the slip helps to detatch the eggs from the hair shaft. Doing it on the same day, three weeks in a row means that you get the whole life cycle.
Chibby