Help! Lice!

[disnut1149]

Hi
I'm just checking back and thanks again for all your suggestions and reports about your experiences with lice. Hopefully we can get this under control. I think doing this much wash everyday is my DD's new career!!

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

Hi
I'm just checking back and thanks again for all your suggestions and reports about your experiences with lice. Hopefully we can get this under control. I think doing this much wash everyday is my DD's new career!!

I feel for you (and your water bill from all that laundry). DD brought home headlice after a visit with her cousins a few years ago. I didn't realize where they came from at the time, but boy was it a pain in the butt. We tried the Rid and Nix shampoos to no avail, mayo, vinegar and any other home remedy I could find on the net. I think as someone else said, you just have to take the hard route and literally nit pick every day. DD had very long hair and it was terribly time consuming. Just when I would think I was done, I'd see yet another nit appear on her hair! Ugh! We bagged all her stuffed animals and "babies" and put them in the garage for a few weeks, washed everything in sight, sprayed and vacuumed her mattress...it gave me enough house work for a week-it was like Spring Cleaning! In the end, we finally got rid of them with a lot of tiring persistence (me sitting there every night in front of the tv picking and coming through her hair). Months later my SIL said DD mentioned she had lice and she wanted to apologize to me because it was DN that probably gave them to her! GRRRRRRRR! The urge to kill my SIL crossed my mind (okay, not literally, but you know...)

It is a shame that a lot of people think that head lice is due to poor hygiene. If that were the case, DD would never have gotten them. She showers twice a day. I am a compulsive cleaner. Anyone can get them. The school nurse that embarrassed someone else's child should be embarrassed HERSELF. Very sad. The physical part of lice is one thing, but let me tell you, DD has never quite gotten over the psychological part of it. She was embarrassed, humiliated and freaked to be in her own skin. To this day she still checks her scalp and hair in the magnifying mirror each day. When she started puberty, she nearly had a nervous breakdown when she started getting dandruff. She thought it was the lice coming back. The doctor assured her it was not lice, but merely dandruff caused by her hormones revving up. People, especially those in the medical field and school personnel, really ought to be a little more sensitive.

Good luck to you, DD and DGD. It takes a while, but hopefully with time and patience you can be rid of the problem once and for all. Good luck.

 

[ameraumi]

While I have never dealt with Lice (*knock on wood*), I have read that mayo, olive oil and tea tree oil is the best natural remedy.

I also attended a workshop for daycare providers that discussed illnesses, and Lice was one of the topics. We were told that bagging the items for 2 weeks is overkill. Lice cannot live more then 24 hours off of the human host. So bagging the items for 2 days is more then enough. I have also read this online as well.

 

[TheDizMom]

Here is a very good website:
http://www.headlice.org/

Hey SueM I am from the Minneapolis area too. We live in Wayzata, where are you? If you don't mind me asking? I certainly understand if you don't want to put it on here.

 

[PA Princess]

We had a bout with head lice this last fall with dd6...awful little buggers. She got the lice from a neighbor girl who came over to play (her mom never mentioned the lice - sheesh)...being little girls they naturally played dress up. When we found the "bugs" in dd's hair, she said, "Oh my friend said she had bugs in her hair." What????? Grrrr!

We were fortunate in that we did not have a reoccurence after initial bout, but I combed and combed and combed dd to within an inch of her life, and we did treat everyone on the house just to be safe.

Best advice I have is to buy a good lice comb (I bought one on line)...it is SO much better than what comes in the kits or any regular comb...it really makes a huge, huge difference! We used cheapy hair conditioner and just combed every day over every inch of her head for a week until not one nit was found (and probably a day or two extra for good measure...then we went to every other day).

Like, I said, we did not have a reoccurence and no one else (4 kids and 3 adults in our house) had an issue despite extreme close contact with dd. Hope you are free of these things asap!

 

[DisneyMomx7]

I totally sympathize. This happened to us about a year and half ago. I was so freaked out. Luckily they caught it really early. School nurse said one dd had 1 nit, the other had 2 nits, and ds had none.

Even though I am an obsessive compulsive cleaner (and also have cleaning people) and the kids shower and shampoo every day I felt like dirty trash. Our school nurse was really nice though and said its usually the clean kids who catch the lice!

I used Nix and it definitely worked. I did overkill and bagged all the stuffed animals and things for a month. I bought a metal comb and combed the girls hair out with every night for a month. I washed sheets, towles, and bedspread in hot water (each twice). I vaccummed and re-vacummed every inch of our house and upholstery. I sprayed everything (even the car upholstery and booster seats). I felt like I didn't sleep for a week. I also started making the girls wear their hair in braids, buns or pony tails (and still do) and spraying their hair lightly with AG hair spray every morning (another school nurse tip).

We were lucky and just had the one spell, no re-infestations. Good luck to you.

 

[PaMom001]

Here are two threads that have cropped up before:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=943373 and here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1316998

Now, I'm itchy.

 

[wen774]

This makes me so glad to see this thread...just knowing that I am not alone in this. My daughter brought home lice this past december, and it took us until april to finally get rid of it. I tried all the chemical...all the homemade treatments...and it just kept coming back. I had to cut my daughters waist length hair short and shave my sons head because i finally couldnt take the 6 hours of combing that it took each time. Near the end, the word lice would have me near tears(and im not the crying type). In the end, the only thing that really worked was combing and picking.

I have heard that there is an electronic comb that zaps the lice. Its supposed to be really effective. Too bad I didnt hear about it til we got rid of it.

 

[Liltx]

My 3 yo got them from her cousins. By the time I noticed she was infested. Nix does not work. We got a prescription from our dr. but I would probably not use that again since it is so toxic but it does kill the lice and eggs so if you have been battling them for months I would consider it. WE had only had them for a couple of days but she did have the reistant kind. I did nit pick her hair still for 3 days. Our dr. said to skip the spraying of everything and just wash the linens and vaccum.

I have also heard that dying your hair works so adults might just try that.

Monica

 

[disnut1149]

Hi Everyone,
I'm checking back again. I just got home from a trip to Las Vegas, my DH had a conference out there, and my DGD looks as though she is doing much better with the lice, but my DD seems to still have them. She shampooed her hair again with Rid. I haven't had a chance yet to talk to her in more detail about it, but will later today when she gets home from school. (She teaches).
Thanks again for all your replies. It helps to know that the attack on lice can eventually be won!!

 

[sskem96]

My dd#2 had them about this time last year. We bagged up all the pillows and stuffed animals in black garbage bags and left them tied up for 1 month. Bagging for 2 days will kill the adults, but there could be eggs on the items that won't hatch for several more days. We washed bedding daily. I sprayed the couch, chairs, matresses, and car upholstery daily with lice spray (Walmart brand). We sprayed the inside of her softball helmet before and after each use. We used the lice shampoo on days 1, 5 and 10. I didn't have any luck with the comb that comes with the shampoo. We had to go through her whole head (a 2 hour process) and pull out every hair with a nit on it. We stuck them to a big piece of tape so they wouldn't end up on the floor and hatching later. She hated doing that, but we did it twice a day for the whole 10 days. Very time consuming, but we never got reinfested. You have to be very vigilant. Think about anything her hair may come in contact with. Do you have upholstered DR chairs? Don't forget the car! And no going to the movies because she could pass them on sitting in those chairs. Even if your daughter is doing her daughter's hair daily, she needs someone to do her own. The shampoo does work, but only on the live bugs. The nits could hatch any time producing more live bugs. You have to manually pick out every hair with a nit on it, that is the key.

 

[4eyedbuzzard]

Went through it twice when the kids were in elementary school. The knit combs do work, but you have to spend about two hours plus going through the entire head of hair in very thin small layers. Some of the smaller nits have to be picked/scraped off by hand - fingernails work. We used the shampoo at 5 day intervals for about 3 weeks, washed and dried all the bedding and clothes, etc. Big PIA.

Never knew where the term "nit-picking" originated from. Found out the hard way.

 

[disnut1149]

Thanks again everyone. My DD thinks that my DGD is rid of the lice, but I will check my DD's hair. She thinks that she doesn't have them any longer. I hope she's right.

 

[kathfish]

As a mother of four, the oldest 16, the youngest 4, I shall say, with all certainty, THE TOO SHALL PASS.



Do what's recommended, knowing that YOU don't want them either.

Then, get ready to do it again.

It's a fact of life, ya gotta deal and ya gotta deal calm and strong.