Head lice fun!

[ladyfey]

The school year is almost over, thought we had avoided it, and my 5 year old daughter has lice. So far her twin brother doesn't and I don't (thank God, how would I de-louse ankle length hair?) So I did olive oil on poor Evelyn's hair yesterday and later used the special comb. Looks much better, and I will do it every day for the next week. What a bummer for the poor kid, but she's being a trooper about it :)

[hennalonghair]

Oh my! You have ankle length hair?
A while back I read about a woman with TBL hair who cut it off due to this very reason.
Her child came home with lice and she got it.
Smothering melted virgin coconut oil and wrapping hair in plastic for 8 hours will get rid of them as well as the eggs.
It's only a one time treatment!
Creepy and unlikeable? ........ LOL!

[Brynja]

Your daughter handles it very well! I remember getting lice in preschool and elemantary school constantly. I had tailbone length hair and my grandmother would get me a chair in the early morning and i would sit on it for what seemed to me like half a day while she'd search for any lice and kill 'em with her nails and all that,it was such a painful experience. By the way,I think there's a product for preventing head lice but I think it smells really nasty,or at least the one I'm thinking about.

[SkyChild]

Tea tree oil is meant to be a preventative too, I'm sure of it. Didn't know that about coconut oil! Does it really kill them all? This is handy

[Freija]

I'm sorry about that! I had headlice repeatedly as a child, and my mother would make me stand up in the bath (no clothes on and freezing cold!) for up to two hours while she smothered my hair in cheap apple conditioner and ripped the lice and eggs out with a comb. My hair was hip length, and it felt as though she was tearing it out at the roots!

Could you incorporate tea tree oil into the wash and/or conditioning routines for your and your children, do you think? It's a natural, but fairly effective, way of repelling them if it's used regularly. : )

[YamaMaya]

Ugh, talk about YUCK! I'm horrified of getting headlice, I would not go near someone with lice without a plastic cap on.

[ladyfey]

I will try the coconut oil, I certainly have some! She really is being so good about it, her hair is waist length, so it is a bit of a production. I have heard about using essential oils, next trip to Whole Foods, I will pick some up. I live in a rural area, so it is hard to run out and get stuff.
I am very grateful that I sleep with my hair covered, since we sleep in the same bed. I don't think I would have avoided the little buggers without that!
Thanks for commiserating with me, everyone :)

[HeavenlyTresses]

You are so lucky your daughter is handling it so well, it can be a frustrating and painful experience. I think my 2 girls handled it much better than I did, I was mortified and cried my eyes out in the shower. I found the best thing was apple cider vinegar, diluted with some water as it loosened up the eggs on the hair strands and they combed out much easier. Getting them out of someone else's hair is so much easier than doing it to your own.

Keeping my fingers crossed that they stay away from your beautiful locks :)

[Laurenji]

There are LOTS of threads on here about how to get rid of lice without cutting hair, if you just poke around a bit. I think the consensus is that anything that will suffocate them is good - oil, mayonnaise, etc - and then just wrap your head in plastic for a long time.

[jacqueline101]

I got them a few years ago. I used lavender conditioner on dry hair put a shower cap on top left it on for hours then I used the special comb then rinsed.

[Nadine <3]

I only had lice once as a kid, but I remember being oddly fascinated by it. My parents used the drug store lice products on my brother and I, and I remember wanting to see the bugs and whatnot. I had a microscope set and my mom let me look at them under it. I wasn't upset until all my stuffed animals got bagged up and stored in the garage for awhile. Good luck getting rid of the buggars!

[spidermom]

My granddaughter and I went through this a couple of weeks ago. I don't know about the oil recommendations. Internet consensus seemed to me negative on that being effective. We did the Rid shampoo twice, about 8 days apart, used strong vinegar rinses to make the eggs easier to comb out, combed them out, then followed with hot flat-ironing, which will dry out/kill any missed nit. So far so good. I would hate to do this again. The nit comb did a number on my granddaughter's hair. It had the curling ribbon effect at the ends. She had to get a couple of inches trimmed off afterward. It didn't do the same to my hair. I was able to use the finest comb without hurting my hair. I guess it's still finer than I've been thinking.

[meteor]

Neem oil is the absolute champion for treating lice naturally, even though it's extremely stinky. Neem kills both lice and eggs, so you probably won't need to reapply later. Also, you don't have to worry about dilution or drying effects (like with tea tree EO), as it is a carrier oil and leaves skin moisturized.

[ladyfey]

Hmmm, I have some neem oil shampoo I have been using on her, maybe it is helping. She liked looking at the lice as well, she had me show her one, Yuck! She was examined by the school nurse today and checked out clean, so she was able to go to school, which made her very happy. They are going to check the whole class for lice, since she most likely got them there.

[spidermom]

When my DD got lice about 20 years ago, she announced it to me as "Mommy! I have teeny-tiny butterflies in my hair!" Her entire school class had it.

[meteor]

When my DD got lice about 20 years ago, she announced it to me as "Mommy! I have teeny-tiny butterflies in my hair!" Her entire school class had it.
LOL Cute! :D I love how kids can have a great attitude about things that grown-ups tend to freak out about.

[woodswanderer]

Wow, Ladyfey, I had no idea you had ankle length hair. I'd love to see a length shot, but I understand if you don't post that stuff for whatever reason. Sorry you are going through this with DD. Hope it doesn't get to the rest of the family. I've dodged the lice bullet so far(knock on wood).

[GrowingOut]

I got lice a few months back, and I hadn't been able to tell anyone because if my mom knew, she would have cut my hair to AT MOST BSL. So, I grabbed a bottle of sugar-free Listerine and a shower cap, let it sit for 18 hours, and NADA was left in my hair. (Due to being unable to nit-pick it, a few months later I was still pulling some dead cases off my strands)

They may be getting chemical resistant, but they sure aren't alcohol resistant.

[Remi]

Yikes! I hope you don't get those buggers in your hair. My daughter was 5 and her brother was 4 when she came home from kindergarten with it. I tried all the home remedies and nothing worked so I got some of the prescription stuff from a friend who had 8 children. If I had know about neem oil back then I would have tried that. I had classic length hair and was lucky enough not to get their lice! I will keep my fingers crossed for you :o

[mouse2cat]

So I had head lice ten years ago and my mom was able to manually kill every single bugger by hand without having to resort to chemicals. She also managed to get all the eggs as well which was a considerable feat because the eggs are pale and I am blonde. I just want you to know that it is possible (not easy) to get rid of the lice without having to cut off all her hair. Unleash your inner gorilla mom.

[Imalath]

My family ran a home daycare when i was in high school...we had horrendous lice problems off and on for several years until a client's "natural guru" gave us a tip. Tea tree oil...3 or 4 drops in each full shampoo and conditioner bottle, shake well before using it. It doesn't kill lice, but it stopped us from ever having another lice outbreak. After a while we could tell which of the parents followed our advice, and which didn't....every time there was a lice outbreak at school, the non tea tree oil kids would get lice, and the ones who followed the program did not. Every. Time.

It was certainly a lifesaver for us...I can remember years where we had to treat our home twice a week for months....

[Jumper]

Never had them, but I work retail and a lady came and asked me where the lice kits were one time... I'm pretty sure I accidentally shot the most horrified look at her and backed a step away while showing her where they were. I'm not normally a rude person, I'm normally incredibly polite, thankfully she was understanding and told her kids to stay by the cart which was a few paces away from us.

I am so diligent about not putting anything on my head like hats or headbands on in stores now that I work retail.