My sisters have lice! What do I do?

[RuthieAnne]

Apparently they got it at church yesterday or Wednesday, I didn't go either days because of a work conference. But I do live in the same house with them, albeit not the same room. I don't have it yet but should I medicate my hair anyway?

Any tips and tricks? We are getting the medication and washing ALL of their bed clothes. We will also be sterilizing all hair care stuff as well.

The last time we got lice was in '96, the morning of a big car trip. Of course that didn't stop us, we bought the stuff and took it with us to our destination. :-p

Thank you!
God bless,

~Ruthie

[Ma'am]

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/116/6/1612

[Maverick494]

I'm an expert with this (unfortunately). In my family, lice used to come and go.

Anyway, after countless washes and decontaminating and spending money, I now know what works:

Here's what rid me and my family of nits:

Step1: Buy yourself a steel nitcomb (http://www.biconet.com/personal/GIFs/nitFreeComb.jpg).
Step 2: Get their hair wet. Detangle with your fingers, then comb through it with the nitcomb. All the nits and lice will go out, so you'll have to make sure you either do it under the sink of in a bathtub, so nothing gets contaminated. Keep combing until the comb doesn't catch anything anymore.
Step 3: Decontaminate the comb and make sure nothing is left behind in it.
Step 4: keep repeating this routine for 2 weeks every day until nothing comes up anymore.

That's it! You don't have to do anything else because lice die within 24 hours away from the scalp.

[Lykaios]

If you don't have it yet, it wouldn't hurt to keep your hair up (braided bun, etc) and wear some kind of head covering until the threat has passed.

:cheese:

[pinkbunny]

Vacuuming helps, too. Do it everyday to pillows, furniture, etc. If you have any plastic slipcovers or old sheets that can be changed & washed often use them (it's only necessary for those who already have lice - unaffected people can just use avoidance of people & areas that have lice). Contrary to popular belief, lice cannot jump like fleas. They attach to hair as it brushes against surfaces or people with lice.

Medicated shampoos can be toxic. I second the steel lice comb - when I had lice (thanx to ex BF's daughter's ignorant school that never did anything about them) I would run it through my hair then dip it in a large cup of water each time, then dump the water & refill when there was a lot in the cup. Just do it carefully as it's a very fine tooth comb and can break hair easily.

Also, oil your hair HEAVILY. You can always hide it in an updo which will also help cut down on "recontamination". Ironically, it's clean hair they prefer, so if it's all greasy, slippery, and oily they have a hard time hanging on and attaching eggs. I also heard they hate vinegar. Any time I was staying home I would soak my hair in white vinegar and wrap it up in a shower cap. It really stunk though! You'll still have to comb out the dead lice & nits after you've killed them...

[TiaKitty]

We have had a scare this weekend as well. One of my cousins had about 10 to 15 adults, no nits. That was on Friday. I checked both of my children and found none. One of my girls did sleep over with her the previous Wednesday; however, they didn't co-sleep.

At my pediatrician's on Friday (for another reason) I asked what to do? He said for a non-toxic treatment, coat the hair in Cetaphil (soap solution) and blow-dry it onto the hair. He said it would form a sort of coating over the hair and nits and they wouldn't be able to breathe or hatch.

I'll try that if it becomes necessary... i.e., I see either nit or insect.

[Amraann]

If they have any stuffed animals... Place them in a garbage bag and keep it sealed for a month.

[lemonmelon]

Maybe you could also ask your sisters to be extra careful with their hair as well? ie; maybe sitting only on one couch/chair of the living room?

Hopefully it turns out okay! I'm sure it will if you're careful :)

[RuthieAnne]

Thanks for all of the great tips! I think we will use this as a good excuse to thoroughly clean their room. Stuffed toys are now in bags, but we still have to clean all of the brushes. Thankfully I stopped using brushes years ago and only use my fingers.

My biggest problem is that ever since I knew it was lice I've had phantom itching all over my body. :-p No fun but at least I haven't got it yet. I will keep what you said in mind and keep my hair extra clean.

Wow! That is one sweet steel comb there . . . dare I hope that it can be bought at Walmart?

Thanks!
God bless,

~Ruthie

[*thecatsmeow*]

Oh no the phantom itches ha ha I hate that! I have had that a few times you swear there must be something crawling on your head ha ha.

[3azza]

Conditioner removes lice, just CO and use this fine comb through your hair and scalp and they will go away. I've seen this on a tv show, australian one "what's good for you" or something like that, i dont remember the name... and they said that u dont catch it from pillows or anything coz they cant live there, only from someone's head.

[celeritas]

One of the products you can buy in Canada is 50% cyclomethicone, 50% isopropyl myristate (IPM). You can mix this in a spray bottle and use it on your hair at night (unless you're someone with really dry hair, you'll have to wash it in the morning). This is proving very effective for lice treatment. I made up a bottle of this for a very stressed out girl back in December, and she hasn't had lice since. (I realize this sounds a bit like a tiger stone - I have this stone, I don't have tigers - but she's had it constantly for over a year from the other kids in school.) This stuff costs something like $30 in the shop - you can make it for probably $1 and a spray bottle!

[sibylla]

If you oil regular you´re fine. I´ve had people around me getting lice but I`ve been spared.Everything you use for your hair like brushes,scrunchies etc put them in your fridge for a day or to.Comb your hair every two days to see you don´t have any lice.Good luck!

[Maverick494]

Wow! That is one sweet steel comb there . . . dare I hope that it can be bought at Walmart?


Yes, you should be able to buy the comb at at any drugstore. Probably Walmart as well.:)


I think we will use this as a good excuse to thoroughly clean their room. Stuffed toys are now in bags, but we still have to clean all of the brushes. Thankfully I stopped using brushes years ago and only use my fingers.

To be honest, all that vacuuming and decontaminating and messing around with lotions and shampoos didn't work at all for us. I found that the most simple and least tiring way was the best. And believe me, with my family (two sisters, one brother) who all had lice, I guess I know what I'm talking about.

At first we all started out the usual way. Washing everything, being paranoid, ruining our hair with that smelly stuff, combing it with a plastic comb....it just kept coming back because we couldn't get all the nits out in time and because the lotions don't kill nits. It's not the lice you need to watch out for, it's the nits.

The average lice lays hundreds of eggs in a short amount of time. Imagine a head full of these icky things. Your sisters prolly have their share of nits. And the problem with these nits is that they have the color of the hair it's attached to, so you don't spot it that quickly.

So really, all you need to do is buy that comb (it costs about $10) or maybe 2 of them and go through the entire family with it. So once you've finished combing the hair of sis number 1, decontaminate the comb, check it for nits and lice (wash it, that usually works as well) and then move on the infested head no.2.



My biggest problem is that ever since I knew it was lice I've had phantom itching all over my body. :-p No fun but at least I haven't got it yet.

Go through the entire family, including yourself. Keep doing that for 2 weeks, every night, and check up after 4 weeks to make sure they're really gone.

And that's it! It doesn't have to be tiring at all. Yes, the lice will be alive when you comb them out, but all you need to do is flush em'. That's what I did. And ofcourse I decontaminated the sink/bath afterwards. I swear, I know I sound like those cheesy too-good-to-be-true ads, but after all this fussing with lice over the years, we haven't had them for 4 years, after I tried this once.

I wished I'd known how to handle it sooner, so we would have been spared $$, effort and itches.

[kwaniesiam]

If you oil your hair, mix a bit of tea tree oil in to your regular hair oil and keep your hair up until the thread has passed. The tea tree oil will deter the lice from your hair.

[christine1989]

I hear that neem oil is good for killing lice but I have never tried it myself.

[beadmask]

I used to work for Head Start (a preschool program) and lice was an occupational hazard. I never got it, but we had to hose down the classroom more than once when it was going around the school.

Washing/vacuuming everything really does help to keep it from spreading. You can also make a gentler, natural shampoo using peppermint Doc Bronner's Casteel soap mixed with tea tree oil (sorry, but I do not remember ratios). Many of our parents swore by it, and it's certainly gentler than quell soap.

Good luck!

[Willow]

My children had a bad case of lice a few months ago and I never got it even though I was the one treating them, etc. I kept my hair pinned up when I was home and I used Paul Mitchell Tea Tree shampoo. I made sure that I kept my own brushes/combs in a seperate room for my use only and I vacuumed the furniture daily and didn't sit where they did. I treated them with a cream treatment (Rid or Nix?). It wasn't a shampoo. I then used the metal nit comb on them as much as we could stand. Once or twice a day. Then every other day I applied a heavy conditioner or listerine and let it sit for as long as they could stand to prevent reinfestation. We got rid of them on the first try. i really think the success came from the combing and the listerine. Just google listerine and lice to read about it. If I had known about the listerine before i used the commercial lice treatment, I would not have used it until I saw if the listerine worked or not.

Good luck!

Jennifer

[Nicoliee]

Don't wash your hair. Lice like clean hair. I lived with some other people as a kid that got it and I had dirty hair at the time and the day I washed it I got lice.