A nasty little subject

[fizz13]

AAARRRRRRR!!!!!! Please please someone tell me that i am not the only mother battling against headlice on a regular basis!!! I am sick to death of combing my children every week, sometimes more and the lotions and potions seem to have very little effect. the worst part was i took my two sons to the hairdresser this afternoon after school, convinced that they were clear. this hairdresser saw the kids coming and the second they were put in the chair she was deliberately looking for them. She said she had a lot of kids in lately from that school with the problem. Now I was looking as carefully as she was and i couldn't see anything!
Anyway I have been and wasted another £10 on another treatment that will be useless, and will get up at 6am to comb and wash their hair out I have just had enough!!!! and of course ironically, it is harder to control until their hair is cut.
Anybody else sick to death of this problem?

 

[Madjock]

Yes Claire, me! I feel your pain. Since DD went to junior school it has been a constant problem.

I wouldn't waste money on any of the treatments because I don't think they work and I don't like to use chemicals. I have tried using Tee Tree as well but that doesn't seem to have any effect. I have recently bought a new nit comb from Boots at 9.99 not cheap! but it is very good. I was also recommended to try Delacet which is a herbal treatment and to switch to Vosene shampoo which I'm going to try because I'm seriously fed up with it. Both my DDs and myself have very long, thick hair so it takes for ever to treat and my 14 yr old is less than impressed to be catching nits from her sister

 

[Dimplenose]

It's an ongoing problem for me. I find that it takes 2 weeks of combing every third day to get rid of them whether or not I use a lotion first. My DD has very long hair and it can take even longer to free her of them. It is important to stick to the three day rule, if I'm one day late they take hold again and it's another fortnight before they're gone.

Working in a year one class it's often me that's the one to bring the headlice home.

Libby

 

[natalielongstaff]

I have just had a similar conversation with one of my mums we suggested bringing back the nit nurse !! that won't happen though

 

[Netty]

Claire I had this problem when my kids were younger-alot younger! It was every week. I'd clear them and then they would get them again and again. It went on for months.try wetting the hair and then putting conditioner on all over -this makes the little critters easier to remove, tee tree was supposed to be very good to use years ago.
I gave up with the lotions as they don't work after a while.
Bring back the nit nurse!!
Its no fun for you or your 2 sons to have this problem, inform the school of this, and they should then send a letter out asking parents to check their kids hair.

 

[angel659]

We did have a problem a couple of years ago. Luckily we have been ok. We used three treatments for Caseys and the boys hair. No luck. Finally when we explained to boots that we have treated it three times and no luck. She gave us a lotion from Full Marks. You basically comb thier hair while the lotion is in. I cant remember how long you leave it in. It worked. It was a miracle that I thought never would happen. Apaprently there are certain types of head lice and certian ones have built up a resistance to the chemicals. I think the writing was purple and it was a lotion. Not the hair mousse or the shampoo. It was great.

I hope you get it sorted soon. Its a nightmare that job.

 

[BRobson]

I had been one of the lucky ones until a few months ago until DD got them Her hair was sooooo thick it took hours. I told them at the school and they said they would put out a letter if they had any more reports

We had three doses of the little suckers but touch wood we are ok as of nit check this morning in the shower.

My health visitor said not to use the lotions but use a massive amount of conditioner and a nit comb. I have been using tea tree shampoo and conditioner as well

But unless all the parents out there are as proactive it is a never ending circle

 

[fizz13]

We did have a problem a couple of years ago. Luckily we have been ok. We used three treatments for Caseys and the boys hair. No luck. Finally when we explained to boots that we have treated it three times and no luck. She gave us a lotion from Full Marks. You basically comb thier hair while the lotion is in. I cant remember how long you leave it in. It worked. It was a miracle that I thought never would happen. Apaprently there are certain types of head lice and certian ones have built up a resistance to the chemicals. I think the writing was purple and it was a lotion. Not the hair mousse or the shampoo. It was great.

I hope you get it sorted soon. Its a nightmare that job.

yep thats the one i've bought michelle, its a lotion thats an overnight jobbie.

thank you everyone for making me feel less alone. I used all the treatments, then i was wet combing with conditioner, then i was using Nitty Griity which is a tee tree oil based product, so i have come full circle with full marks. the chemist did ask if i wanted mousse or lotion, and i explained i wanted full strength, did you know there is quite a difference between the mousses and lquid strength wise? just giving the heads up as they are not the same at all. Will keep you posted if we get the elusive haircut tomorrow

 

[mark&sue]

Kirsty was in full time nursery from when she was a baby to when she went to school and it was a nightmare. The nursery used to check the heads before you left your child each morning and if there was any nits they would not let the child into the nursery for the day. This was dreadful because it cost a lot of money and mothers were obviously working or else they would not be using it and they offered no refund (you paid monthly in advance). There was no way you could phone into work and say you could not come in because your child had nits!!! Both me and Kirsty had long hair and it would take forever. We found the only way to do it property was to go through with a fine tooth comb all the hairs every day for a couple of weeks.

I still have nightmares thinking back to those days. Junior School was much better in that they did not stop your child from going to school but there always seemed to be an outbreak. We tried everything even that electronic thing.

Glad to say once Kirsty went to secondary school the problem went away.

but I feel your anguish.



Susan

 

[aaronandterri]

at my dds old school it was an ongoing problem, nightmare with her hair its so long she could sit on it!, but at the new school when we moved it has never been a problem....(thankgod)

 

[robinb]

We have them here in the US too! My DD just went through her second ... infestation. I found that the over-the-counter products such as Nix and Rid (lice insecticide brands here in the US) do not work because the lice population is starting to become resistant.

The thing that really worked for me is combing with a fine-toothed metal nit comb. I would wash my DD's hair and leave some conditioner in it and then comb it when it's damp. The lice can move pretty fast and they move from hair shaft to hair shaft away from the scalp. The conditioner slows them down so they can be snagged by the comb. After every stroke I would check the comb against the light and wipe out anything caught with a tissue or the little brush that came with my comb. That way I didn't re-introduce a critter back into her hair. Luckily, her school didn't have a "nit free" policy so I didn't even worry about them. I ONLY worried about the LIVE lice and I combed them out on a 21-day program I found here:
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/theliceprogram/index.html

Another good website is Harvard's Headlice Information:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/headlice.html

I also tried the olive oil cure suggested by my DD's school nurse and the Harvard site. I bought a cheap hair dying kit at the local Dollar Store (I know your have a store like this ), threw out the dye and used the squirt bottle to get the olive oil right at the scalp. I don't know much it helped as I continued to capture live lice after the treatment.

Good luck! Lice suck. Literally.

 

[fizz13]

RobinB, thank you so much for those websites, i just had a read through the 21 day program and it makes perfect sense, i think i was giving up too soon, or combing on the wrong days, actually it reminded me a lot of a fertility chart with good days and bad days Will be giving it a go!

Right, the troops have gone to bed with lotion on and precisely applied to every root, section by section Yep it was an hour of work! Lets see what tomorrow brings.

 

[robinb]

You're welcome! I really liked it because I wasn't combing every single day. It gives you a bit of rest to keep your strength and spirits up.

The other thing about nits is that any that are found more than an inch or two from the scalp have already hatched and are harmless. The eggs are laid at the scalp and by the time the egg sack makes it past 2 inches the louse inside it is long gone!

 

[emily1982]

Coming from the point of someone who works a school you can never be rid of them unless everyone treats their hair at the same time. Schools can allow children in who have eggs but children should be sent home with live nits. Also the school nurse can advise parents on nits, but they can't check as it is child protection.

 

[natalielongstaff]

Also the school nurse can advise parents on nits, but they can't check as it is child protection.

 

[florida sun]

Claire

I sympathise, I really do,I was in absolute dispair some years ago, not that she will thank me for sharing this now, but I could not get rid of them in Vickis hair right the way through Junior school at all, and her hair was down to her bottom, they always seemed worse in the winter,through Oct- Feb in the end she had so much cut off just to make it a bit easier to treat. We tried all the chemical lotions going,to no avail, in the end I washed it every night, loads and loads of leave in conditionar to make it hard for the little bliters to grip onto, used a tooth comb every night and then discovered a product called Chinese Whispers from the health shop and it was a godsend. You can get it in a spray which you can leave in, it has no horrible smell and dosent look like there is anything on the hair. I topped this up every night for 3 weeks in a row, with the Chinese Whispers shampoo, and continued using the spray repellant on a regular basis.

If its any consolation, once she started high school, they dissapeared, and Im gussing that is because the kids had single desks and kids of that age tend not to do loads of group work together, with their heads touching so much.

Good luck in getting rid of them

 

[robinb]

Schools can allow children in who have eggs but children should be sent home with live nits. Also the school nurse can advise parents on nits, but they can't check as it is child protection.

Just to be 100% clear: a nit is an egg. A newly hatched louse is a nymph. The eggs are OK to leave (in my opinion) as long as you get rid of them once they hatch.

Here in my DD's school district (Madison, WI USA) the school nurse can and does check for lice. My DD's whole class gets checked once a week after the latest outbreak. My DD has been lice free for about 2 weeks and I informed the teacher that she had them as soon as I found out so that means that they have had an infestation in her class for at least 5 weeks and some kids still have them. I don't know if she was the kid who infected everyone else or if she got them from another kid . I felt that it was my job to inform the school so other parents would keep an eye out for the little critters.

 

[arieliwish]

Oh yes lovely biddies!!! My DD (now yr 8) seemed to have them every few weeks in yrs 4 and 5 despite me using very strong suleo (they fall dead into bath as soon as you put it on) and going through her hair section by section. I found a nit comb would sometimes miss eggs and the only way to remove them was with my nails.

The main problem was that 1 or 2 girls families really didn't bother doing anything about it so every time I saw them I would spend £10 on a bottle of stuff (tried most of them) and was 99% sure DD was clear, only to have to do it all again 3 weeks later. DD was more fed up than me as it was her head that was suffering.

Senior school now and no problems, thank goodness, and as DS 9 doesn't usually put his head anywhere near 'girls - yuk' then we haven't had a problem with him!

You have my sympathies.

Lynn

 

[carolfoy]

I've always used tea tree on Callum and he's always escaped getting nits, whether thats down to his hair type or the oil i can't say.

 

[T16GEM]

I have just had a similar conversation with one of my mums we suggested bringing back the nit nurse !! that won't happen though

Don't they have the nit nurse anymore then? I'm dreading whrn outrs start getting them, I remember having them as a child once and the teacher announced it to the whole class - I was mortified.

Remember that you only get them if you are clean though. Still none the less.