AHHHH - Head lice!!

[tlbwriter]

Lice only have about a 2 days lifespan, so if you go 4 days withotu seeing any, you should be in the clear.

Actually, adult lice on a human can live up to 30 days. If they cannot feed, they'll die in 2 days, so maybe that's what you're thinking of. Also, nits take 6 to 9 days to hatch. So you could easily get rid of all the living lice but still have nits that will hatch a week later.

http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/HTML/HeadLice.htm

 

[wvdislover]

I really feel your pain. 2 days after returing home from Disney I disovered we had lice. All 4 of us! After my own investagation a talking to several nurses and doctors, I know we got it from Disney, probably the room. We stayed at Pop Century and there were many many clues but we missed them all. First, the room smelled of bug spray when we firs arrived. Do they spray ALL the rooms??? Second, after a night of sleep, I woke up itchy. I immediately checked for bedbugs...expecting them to be there because of the itchiness, but I found none. Third, I actually found a small bug in my hair 2-3 days into our trip, now knowing it was a louse! And forth, my head was itchy for most of our trip! I ruled out every possibility that we brought them,to Disney but no-one in our social group or family has them but us! Not to mention, my daughter and I were at the salon getting our hair cut just days before our trip. I double checked with her and she said she would have seen it in our hair. A nurse told me that we had to have been repeatedly exposed..."hotel room?", for us to all have it so bad. We were at Disney for 10 days. I don't want to go back. I can't be the only one this has ever happened to?

So sorry to hear that this happened to you! I hope you'll be able to put it aside and return to Disney sometime. Keep in mind, you can pick up lice in lots of different places...movie theater seats, trying on hats in stores (pretty sure this is how my DD13 got it last year), walking near someone who has it (if they flip their hair and "fling" them onto your hair), airplane seats, etc. As much as we'd like to after lice has infested our family, we can't avoid everything! You may want to consider investing in the Fairy Tale hair care line (they have shampoo, conditioner, detangler)...people swear by it...it's a lice repelling product. It's expensive, but worth the price of more peace of mind. I had my girls start using it a couple weeks before we left...I was paranoid b/c we discovered that they had lice a few days before we left for WDW last year, when we went to the hairdresser I spent hours treating and picking before we left, so we wouldn't pass it on to others! Didn't want to have to deal with it again! Good luck getting over all of this. It's hard, but it will pass!

 

[riley2008]

I can't believe it wasn't mentioned in this post. I'm always curious to see the unique ways people try to combat these little creatures.

The best advice ever given to me from a kindergarten teacher was Sergeant's Skip Flea Dog Shampoo. She was a firm believer in anytime that you may be exposed to lice- hotels, airplanes, or hugging scratchy headed 5 year olds, a good shampooing of the stuff every 4 days or so, will keep the crawlers away.

Flea shampoo also kills the "eggs" aka "nits". (Dog shampoo is still a pesticide.)

Also, just because there are nits, doesn't necessarily mean they are alive and capable of hatching. (The dead nits are brown or will turn brown after a few days, but will still glow under black lights.) (Still a good idea to remove them, but not transmittable.)

(I'm always surprised at what poeple do thinking they are helping the situtation - like vacuuming twice a day and tossing the bag away each time for several days. )

 

[SarahKate]

I really feel your pain. 2 days after returing home from Disney I disovered we had lice. All 4 of us! After my own investagation a talking to several nurses and doctors, I know we got it from Disney, probably the room. We stayed at Pop Century and there were many many clues but we missed them all. First, the room smelled of bug spray when we firs arrived. Do they spray ALL the rooms??? Second, after a night of sleep, I woke up itchy. I immediately checked for bedbugs...expecting them to be there because of the itchiness, but I found none. Third, I actually found a small bug in my hair 2-3 days into our trip, now knowing it was a louse! And forth, my head was itchy for most of our trip! I ruled out every possibility that we brought them,to Disney but no-one in our social group or family has them but us! Not to mention, my daughter and I were at the salon getting our hair cut just days before our trip. I double checked with her and she said she would have seen it in our hair. A nurse told me that we had to have been repeatedly exposed..."hotel room?", for us to all have it so bad. We were at Disney for 10 days. I don't want to go back. I can't be the only one this has ever happened to?

One thing to keep in mind is that it takes the lice several days to actually hatch and that's when they really start to make the scalp super itchy. If you were itching for most of your trip, then it's VERY possible that you had caught them before your trip. Lice don't live long at all of the host.....they need a warm place where they can feed and a mattress isn't going to do it for them.

Let's say a louse got on you (which actually isn't that likely unless you are in close "head to head" contact with someone - they stay very close to the scalp and don't jump around). It lays eggs.....those eggs take 10 days to hatch.

I know it's kind of icky to think about, and I'm getting itchy just typing this, but just keep in mind that you may not have gotten it at Disney and the chances of it happening a 2nd time are very, very low!

 

[pixiewings71]

I really feel your pain. 2 days after returing home from Disney I disovered we had lice. All 4 of us! After my own investagation a talking to several nurses and doctors, I know we got it from Disney, probably the room. We stayed at Pop Century and there were many many clues but we missed them all. First, the room smelled of bug spray when we firs arrived. Do they spray ALL the rooms??? Second, after a night of sleep, I woke up itchy. I immediately checked for bedbugs...expecting them to be there because of the itchiness, but I found none. Third, I actually found a small bug in my hair 2-3 days into our trip, now knowing it was a louse! And forth, my head was itchy for most of our trip! I ruled out every possibility that we brought them,to Disney but no-one in our social group or family has them but us! Not to mention, my daughter and I were at the salon getting our hair cut just days before our trip. I double checked with her and she said she would have seen it in our hair. A nurse told me that we had to have been repeatedly exposed..."hotel room?", for us to all have it so bad. We were at Disney for 10 days. I don't want to go back. I can't be the only one this has ever happened to?

I can say with all honesty that I'm 99.9999% sure you did not get your lice from Disney's hotels. Just because you smelled bug spray doesn't mean anything about lice, standard bug sprays do not work on lice and the lice spray I've used did NOT smell anything like bug spray. Also, it takes time for them to hatch, if you itched your whole visit then you probably had them before you stayed at the hotel. How did you travel there? If you flew it is possible you could have picked them up on the plane, however it still takes them time to make you start to itch so it's still likely you had them prior to your visit, even if the hair stylist said she didn't see them it's very possible. One of the times my oldest DD had them we found out while getting hair cuts, mine was finished and then they started hers, about halfway thru her cut the stylist did notice one on DD, she finished the cut and then I asked her to check me again...well she did and yup, I had a couple of them as well, so it's very possible that the stylist just didn't see them on you. And of course we stayed in hotels every time we went to DLR over a 2 year period, we went more often then once per month and we never ever had any lice problems after staying at any hotels, let alone the Disney hotels. Now, that doesn't mean that's not where they came from, but it seems very unlikely given my personal experiences with lice. I hope you got rid of them all and I hope you don't get them again.......my head sort of itches after reading these threads. LOL

 

[tlbwriter]

Also, it takes time for them to hatch, if you itched your whole visit then you probably had them before you stayed at the hotel.

She would have had to pick up live lice at the hotel. Nits don't transfer from bedding to person. The live lice, if she had picked them up at the hotel, would cause immediate itching.

 

[michelle140]

I still believe that we got them from Disney. I wish I could find someone else who went though this. Like I said...it is one month tomorrow since we returned home and no one in my family or childens friend's have it. My kids spent the night with my mom and at my sister-in-law's 2-3 days proir to our trip. My daughter who had it pretty bad slept in her bed just 2 days prior. I feel very strongly that if my daughter had them before our trip, my sister-in-law would have got them!

 

[tlbwriter]

I still believe that we got them from Disney. I wish I could find someone else who went though this. Like I said...it is one month tomorrow since we returned home and no one in my family or childens friend's have it. My kids spent the night with my mom and at my sister-in-law's 2-3 days proir to our trip. My daughter who had it pretty bad slept in her bed just 2 days prior. I feel very strongly that if my daughter had them before our trip, my sister-in-law would have got them!

You would think so, but when my DD had them, she'd slept in our bed and my husband had slept in hers (she sleeps with me when she's really sick) and neither DH nor I got them. Perhaps we were just extraordinarily lucky.

 

[michelle140]

Maybe, but doesn't that just further point at Disney for my family and I? We ALL got it! My husband has very short hair and my son's hair wasn't very long and they both had it. The nurse told me that we were repeatedly exposed for us all to have had it in such a short period of time. Live lice can live up to 2 days without a host. At Disney, one family checks out in the morning, and another checks in the same day. After they check out some of those little buggeres are left behind just waiting for the next head. You go to sleep that night and boom...you got them.

 

[tlbwriter]

Yes, I agree that it's very possible you picked them up at WDW. I was disagreeing with the poster who said it was unlikely. Unfortunately, it is possible to have them for a while without realizing it - the other family may not have known they were spreading lice. (And yes, I do know it's just as possible that they did know, and didn't care.)

 

[princessmom29]

It is very possible you picked the m up on the trip, but they could hsve come from ANYWHERE, not just ahotel room. You could have gotten them by brushing up agianst someone while standing in line, from a cloth backed chair in a restaurant ect.

 

[tlbwriter]

It is very possible you picked the m up on the trip, but they could hsve come from ANYWHERE, not just ahotel room. You could have gotten them by brushing up agianst someone while standing in line, from a cloth backed chair in a restaurant ect.

But it seems unlikely that her entire family would have brushed up against the lice carriers in line. Unless that was a real happenin' line, I guess.

 

[DisneyDorkORama]

my sons had NITS really bad.. I couldnt find any live lice. But a bunch of nits. And it took forever to get them out. Even using lice combs I couldnt get them out..I had to pick them out the best I could. Eventually we just had to shave their heads

 

[sk8jdgca]

These work amazing and no need for any poisons.
http://www.amazon.com/Terminator-Pr...BPV8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286055623&sr=8-1

you can use it periodically to make sure that you don't have any more.

I can't believe the amount of people who try on hats at disney-eek!

 

[SarahKate]

There's truly NO possible way to know for sure where they came from. Timing-wise, it doesn't make sense if you were itching for the whole trip.

When my DD got them last year, DH and I never got them. We thought we had it - we kept itching, but upon close inspection there would be nothing on either of us. I think it was just the idea of it, made us itchy! And she was sleeping in our bed every night! So there was a high chance of us getting them. She had a pretty bad infestation.

And the daughter who slept in the bed 2 days prior to another child is not going to pass it along because the lice can't live off their host. Two days later, the lice would be dead. If the two kids had been there at the same time, sleeping in the same bed, then YES, definitely a strong possibility.

Lice gets passed along when kids are in close physical contact - sharing hair accessories, hats.

I understand where you're coming from, but there really is no way to know. And at this point it really doesn't even matter. Lice are a fact of life.....they've been around since the beginning of time. I went through a phase where it made me crazy wondering where my DD got them from, but finally just had to accept that fact it could have come from anywhere!

Sorry this thread keeps going back and forth, just trying to educate on the way these pests operate.

 

[disneydreamersx4]

my sons had NITS really bad.. I couldnt find any live lice. But a bunch of nits. And it took forever to get them out. Even using lice combs I couldnt get them out..I had to pick them out the best I could. Eventually we just had to shave their heads

http://www.hellolife.net/explore/head-lice/head-lice-what-are-nits/


Me too, I couldn't find any live ones on my DD's head and it's been a week and I'm still finding some nits well, I do have to check tonight so hopefully they're all gone! I sympathize with everyone who has had to deal with this, it's not easy for the parents or the kids.

 

[DLB]

HEllo, I know that this is an older thread and I am sure you are far away from dealing with this, but I wanted to put this information out there for anyone else that is dealing with the same thing. I carry these products at my salon and highly rec them for prevention or getting rid of them. They also have a bed bug spray!

I use this on my daughter all the time and never travel without it. When we are heading to the movies or a fair/theme park I always load up her hair with the Rosemary repel spray. It is organic and very safe to use on them. I even use it on myself.

You can order it online or you can see if a salon in your area carries it.

Hope this helps!