View Full Version : Head lice scare
Lucy Elizabeth
July 2nd, 2017, 11:33 AM
Hello everyone
So I recently came into contact with head lice, for my first time ever at age 22. I caught it pretty early and went out and bought "ZAP" lice shampoo, a bottle of tea tree oil spray, bagged up everything that couldnt be washed and washed all of my clothes and blankets etc. I've been throwing my pillows in the dryer for 30 minutes every few days as well. However, the little buggers WILL NOT GO AWAY
Things I have tried to prevent further spreading and infestation over the last few weeks
-Smothering overnight with coconut oil
-Leaving my hair dirty for an extra day (usually wash it every 2 days)
-Keeping my hair braided or in a bun and spraying tea tree oil over it
-2 treatments of "ZAP"
-getting my mom to look through my hair every few days with the lice comb
-putting all my hair ties, combs, etc in boiling water after use
-bagging up clothes and throwing them in the washer instead of putting them in the hamper
^The funny thing about that is every time my mom looks through my hair its never drastically infested. Just a few nits around my ears and occasionally a live bug, never gets worse than that, could I take this as a good sign?
This has been really stressing me out and i am at my wits' end. We may have to dye my hair but I don't want to do that just yet if there are easier ways to get rid of them. Has anyone tried or had any success with the flat iron or blow dryer treatment? Or do we just need to take a few hours to sit down and wet comb my entire head? It's just frustrating because its nearly gone just some stray bugs that don't want to leave shudder:
Thank you and I will try to keep everyone updated
Wildcat Diva
July 2nd, 2017, 02:30 PM
I made an official "coping with lice" thread on here that you might like to check out. I'll bump it. It's been over one year since my three boys had a mild case. It never got worse and improved steadily with my efforts. It did take about 2-3 months for me to claim full elimination. I would recommend my posts in that thread referencing my method with diluted neem oil in conditioner. I recommended this method to another mom recently, and a month later she was thanking me. Good
Luck.
I would comb through conditioner and neem oil and leave twice a week and expect that to continue for 2 months before you consider yourself finished treating. It's not hard.
lapushka
July 3rd, 2017, 04:52 AM
Oh boy. I hope you can get rid of them. Good luck to you. Keep combing with the lice comb (I would do it daily), and keep using the shampoo and everything else you've been doing. It is obviously working.
queenbee1
July 3rd, 2017, 04:18 PM
I usually just wash with anti lice shampoo (containing permithrin) for two weeks. Since it is pretty strong I now clarify with it once a month and have been lice free for years now. :)
Decoy24601
July 3rd, 2017, 05:14 PM
When I was little I had lice and the "anti-lice" shampoos and treatments just didn't work--the little buggers must have been resistant to the chemicals in them already. The only thing that got rid of them was soaking my hair in olive oil 24/7 and manually combing out the lice for about 2 weeks. We also had to wash all the bedding and dry it on high heat, including stuffed animals, basically anything that was fabric that I came into contact with. I honestly thing combing out lice every few days just isn't enough from my experience. Imo it should be done every day.
Wildcat Diva
July 3rd, 2017, 06:21 PM
I had excellent results with neem diluted in conditioner.
Persistence is needed and it will take time as hardly nothing is 100 percent.
Rehab350
July 4th, 2017, 01:26 AM
Soak your hair in ACV before wash it. It may help
ladyfey
July 4th, 2017, 05:41 AM
You need to use the lice comb three times every day for about a week, then you can go to once a day for a week. Then they should be gone. You can put a bunch of conditioner on to make combing easier. But each time you comb through should take about as long as it takes to watch a movie. It is a slow, involved process. I know it seems like a pain, but the alternative is battling lice for months and months.
Anje
July 4th, 2017, 08:39 AM
These days, a lot of the bugs are resistant to the pesticides in those shampoos, so if that hasn't cleared it up, I'd go looking into the smothering methods. It varies from source to source, but the usual is something along the lines of covering hair heavily with conditioner or mayonnaise or olive oil or such for a few hours to suffocate the adults, then combing. (Edit: It looks like it's not clear that this actually smothers them, but might work mostly as a lubricant to make combing easier. If that's the case, you might skip the wait and just oil your hair up heavily and go at it with a comb.) You repeat every couple of days to kill the juveniles as they hatch, before they can mature and lay more eggs, and figure it's going to take a few weeks to get them all. Internet rumor says that straight vinegar helps get the nits to detach from the hair shaft, but I have no personal knowledge or experience of this beyond that my skin isn't fond of vinegar at those concentrations for long.
I see no reason why you shouldn't carefully and thoroughly detangle before each nit-combing. There's no sense in going straight to a fine-tooth comb without taking care of your tangles first. Just make sure your wide-tooth comb is cleaned well after. Use the smothering agent as a lubricant -- it'll probably be easier on your hair that way anyway.
Wildcat Diva
July 4th, 2017, 09:16 AM
If you are seeing only a few here and there... all that combing three times a day to catch one louse isn't a very efficient method, labor and energy wise . This method of nit combing so frequently would have shredded my boy's curly hair. I did comb some with conditioner and a fine tooth comb, but didn't get hardly any lice or nits to comb out of the hair this way. Maybe I found a couple this way, that's it, for the mild case we had. Nits that were way down the hair shaft and no longer viable were hand picked off in the sunlight, and I doubt this process made a difference, as they were several inches down the hair shaft. Nits that are viable are found close to the scalp.
Neem disrupts their feeding cycle and physically kills them, it makes your hair an uninhabitable place to be. It's not hard on your hair or scalp. The studies on it I've linked in the coping with lice thread were very encouraging to me.
meteor
July 4th, 2017, 10:40 AM
I agree that using neem oil should help. :agree: You can either dilute it in some other oil (or oil blend) or use it in conditioner or simply use it straight - it's very moisturizing and it's a "carrier" oil, so really there is no need to dilute it if you don't want to. It's a very, very stinky oil though, but hopefully keeping hair tightly bunned and covered with something for the time being will help.
My understanding is that there are some issues with resistant lice infestations these days, so if some anti-lice shampoo/product doesn't work, I'd just try another, while still continuing smothering hair in oils with neem and/or tea tree.
I am very sorry you are going through this, Lucy Elizabeth! :grouphug: I hope you get rid of them soon! :pray: Best of luck to you! :flower:
lithostoic
July 4th, 2017, 10:47 AM
I battled lice for 6 months last year. Thinking about it is giving me the itchies. One day I just didn't have them anymore. Hope that soon you wake up and just don't have them.
Lucy Elizabeth
July 5th, 2017, 10:20 PM
Hello everyone
Still fighting the battle but i thankfully have DBF to aid me. We sat down last night and went at my hair for a few hours, not the most romantic evening but it had to be done and I think we definitely made some headway. They seem to really like my left ear because everytime he swiped a comb through that part he would pull out a bunch of nits. He has perfect vision too haha so he was great at spotting them.
Definitely going to do a comb through/smother every few days before i wash it but I may try olive oil next time instead of coconut oil. DBF even offered to go through it until it was all gone so I have my own personal hairstylist to help :)
Thank you everyone for the advice and best wishes! Hearing my fellow longhairs' experiences with lice has made me feel a lot better and more determined to keep going.
Wildcat Diva
July 5th, 2017, 10:49 PM
Glad you are making headway. Keep up the hard work.
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