Lice

[WritingPrincess]

About a month (?) ago we stayed at someone's house, and I now remember that her daughters had had lice a few weeks before, but they had eradicated them. Well. . .

My sisters (Thing 1, 9, and Thing 2, almost have lice. They've been scratching their heads a lot lately ("Bug bites!" they proclaimed) and this morning my mother found a louse. Ew. They've been in and out of my room countless times, on my bed (though I don't think they've been in it) and Thing 1 uses my hairpins for ballet.

I haven't been unusually itchy, no bites on my neck, and my hair has been in a bun 24/7. Granted, I was playing dress-up in the same clothes and sleeping in the same beds at the friend's house. Is it possible I'm not infested?

My mom's out buying nit combs, mayo, and the like, and I'm washing bedding. I know I'll need a preventative treatment (she's been researching online) but, if a check reveals no lice or nits, do I need nit-combing too? If so, is it possible to comb oneself? Anything else I should know? Anything I can do to keep from getting little explorers in MY HAIR while we're going through the regimen?

Thanks.

[julliams]

As soon as anyone mentions lice I'm scratching myself. I am a teacher so lice is just a part of life and I've never had to cut my hair because of it - ever!!!

Basically a louse needs a host - a food source ie blood. They have done tests in kindergarten classrooms and found no lice crawling anywhere - they are all on heads!!! The only way you can get them is if you put your heads together, one crawls out onto a chair/bed/toy etc and then you come in contact with that chair/bed/toy.

Ok, lets assume you have them. Don't freak out! The cheapest way to get rid of them is to slather your hair with cheapo conditioner and use a lice comb. Section off your hair and run the comb through each section, wiping the residue on a paper towel. Always examine the residue. If it has tear-drop shaped eggs, it means there is a live louse in your hair. If you go all the way through and find nothing, then you are clear.

If you do find eggs, you need to keep doing this treatment every other day or so until you are clear and have found a live lice. Having said this, my children have had lice and I have combed for days and never found the live one because I must have caught it very quickly and the live one somehow removed itself from their heads. I did find one between the sheet and the mattress once - dead, must have got trapped there.

The adult live ones are about 3 mm long so they are big enough to see. The immature ones are quite small but you can still see them once you get them out.

The more expensive way is to get one of the chemical treatments they have on the market that claim to kill the lice and their eggs. When I'm treating myself, I do use this product because it means that I'm covering all the bases. Then I follow up with the conditioner treatment I mentioned before. You have to do this because the chemicals don't always kill everything and you will be back to square one in a couple of weeks.

Don't worry too much about the condition of your hair after the chemical treatments. In my experience my hair has been wonderfully soft after using them. And of course with the conditioner only method, your hair is just getting a nice treatment as you go through it all. You might find that the comb pulls out a bit of hair but that can't be helped.

The trick is to keep up the conditioner only treatments until you don't find anything anymore. If you leave even one egg, it will hatch, lay it's own eggs and when they hatch, will mate with them which is why it takes a couple of weeks and it comes back.

In terms of your room, wash your bedding and let it hang on the line in the sun if you can, otherwise in the dryer on hot. I wouldn't worry about washing soft toys because as I said, a lice needs a food source and your toys aren't going to provide it with one so it will just go looking for one until it finds one or dies.

Hope you get it sorted and hopefully you won't have them at all in the end anyway.

[WaitingSoLong]

Do a lot of internet research. Lice recur easily if not properly eradicated. Couches need to be treated/vacuumed. Eggs can take like 2 weeks to hatch, so even if the adults are gone, the eggs often hatch and cause reinfestation. Itching only occurs after lice have been there awhile, in most people. My kids had lice a couple years ago and here is what I did:

The lice treatments, thorough combing of hair, searching section by section (this took hours), removing hairs with eggs (because the eggs are cemented on, just pull out the hair or cut above the egg), I took all the communal blankets (throws), pillows and unnecessary things like stuffed animals, bagged them and put them in the attic for a month. I spray treated every surface in my house/car with spray, the carpets with dust (I am a germophobe), kept my hair bunned and covered and was chekced regularly by my MIL to see if I was infested. My one son had buzzed hair, as did my husband, but my daughter and older son both had pretty long hair and they were the ones with lice. It just takes patience. I think they were treated 3 times each. We were lucky and found it fairly early. They don't live on pets. I washed everything and changed pillow cases for them every couple days. The dryer heat thing is good. Again, just Google getting rid of lice. Read up on the life cycle so you understand how often they reproduce and how. ONE TREATMENT is not a cure. Even the ones that say they kill eggs may miss, and only ONE egg is needed to start it all over. Well, maybe two?

Put lice powder in your vacuum and vacuum like crazy, especially where you do the nit combing or anywhere hair is combed. Sterilize combs/brushes.

Diligence!

Live lice are very hard to catch, the conditioner thing works well but you cannot really check yourself. Believe me, I tried with mirrors and magnifying glasses and cameras LOL. I was paranoid for MONTHS. I never did get lice myself (I did I think two preventative treatments), but I was cleaning like a psycho daily for weeks. It was exhausting! I still fear, when I get an itch behind my ears or something...and I check again! I even check my hair that are in my brushes STILLLLLL and it has been 2 years! I check my daughter regularly now, too. My older son moved out and my other son has buzzed hair.

There is one poor sweet girl in her class that always has lice. I wish her parents would erdaicate the issue.

[Beesweet]

We stayed at a hotel several years ago and got lice. My type 4B daughters had it the worst, since it was very difficult to get out of type 4 hair. There were five of us in all who got it.

I shaved the guys' heads. My hair was fairly short and easy. The girls had a tough time.

We found that the chemicals didn't work that well. Our lice were resistant. I nit-picked, literally. I now know what that term really means. Went over hair a square inch at a time, time and time again. Washed all bedding, any towel that touched the girls, all cloth they touched, daily. I vacuumed several times a day all the rooms they were in. They were not allowed to sit on anything that had upholstery. I made them a soft place on the floor where they could lie down and rest their heads if they wanted to read or something.

If memory serves, just to be on the safe side, when I thought we had it all done, I SOAKED their heads in olive oil, wrapped the heads in big garbage bags, and put them to sleep on several layers of old towels, which I later threw away. The oil drowns the lice. It worked. We never saw lice again, but it was a lot of work. We also watched a lot of TV during the picking.

Also, I also went over their heads EVERY NIGHT for about a week after, just to see if I missed an egg.

For the record, they say henna takes care of lice...

[Squeak toy]

I work in a pediatrictions office and we recoomend that you treat everyone to stop it in the begining. Whole Fat mayo over night to smother live lice. Then for 1-2 weeks or until you are sure there are no more lice for a few days comb each day. Nothing will kill the eggs they must be removed by hand. Wash sheets daily in hot also all sheets and pillow cases. Anywhere they lay their head can have them so even put couch pillows in the wash or in a trash bag for 2 weeks.
You may not have it or ever get it. Have your mother look for lice in your hair and for eggs if she does not see anything still do the mayo and keep looking. If she sees eggs then you can comb yourself but it will be hard as they are small and you have to see all of your head.
The CDC has good guidelines on their website

[Delila]

My niece had terrible trouble with lice when she was younger, but I think it was mostly because her mom (my sister ) was in total denial.

I once spent the better part of an evening treating the problem with actual chemicals and combing, section by section, rinsing out the comb in the sink. The lice she had seemed to blend in with her hair color, so they were hard to spot.

I'd say that acknowledging the problem and taking serious minded steps to do something about it puts you way ahead of the game.

As others have said, cutting hair isn't necessary in any way.

[DragonLady]

The last time we had them we used a combination of the chemical shampoo, Suave coconut conditioner and overnight olive oil treatments. I very much believe the coconut conditioner did the best job removing them.

Just have the child shampoo their hair, then put a handful of the conditioner in and work it through with a comb. Grab the nit comb, and carefully comb it out one section at a time.

We did NOT go through the whole rigamarole of washing bedding everyday, vacuuming our brains out or scouring the house. We simply couldn't -the kids were in school and DH and I owned a store so there were simply no hours in the day to do it.

It took two weeks of daily combing, followed by two weeks of every-other-night to be sure we were clear. After that, I did it once each weekend for another three weeks just to make sure we didn't have new hatchlings from eggs we had missed.

[Aleria]

When I had lice as a child, we got rid of it with a big chop (Read: the reason I never want to cut my hair that short again!) and tea tree oil shampoo, along with nit combing.
My grandma tried the nit combing alone all summer and it never worked, but I got home and my mom did the tea tree oil thing and chopped it and they were gone in a couple days.
I don't recommend the chop, but definitely the tea tree oil.

[Nat242]

My partner (APL hair) works with kids and he's come home with lice a couple of times. I slathered both of our hair in a mix of conditioner and EVOO each night, then I used a lice comb on his hair each morning. Slowly, thoroughly. The conditioner/EVOO treatment was a very effective preventative treatment.

[Jules diamond]

Tea tree shampoo saved my life. Killed the nits and lice fast and kept them away. And it smells so nice!