LICE....does olive oil help?

[kaygela]

My DH and both DS and me have lice. We used RID but have read such terrible things about it. We had professional nit pickers come to our house and they told us to use olive oil and shower caps every nite for one week and then every other nite for 2 weeks. I was wondering if anyone has had success with this. We are at wits end. We have vacuumed, bagged and boiled everything we can think of. I am on the verge of a breakdown. It doesn't help that I am recovering from a mild case of pneumonia! Any advice would be welcomed.

 

[Aimeedyan]

There are professional nit pickers?

 

[HelenePA]

There are professional nit pickers?

I was wondering the same thing.. how does one become a professional nit picker? is there a college for this?

 

[kaygela]

I went online and found a local company called Licebeaters. Two women came to the house and set up bright lamps. They wore magnified glasses and worked from both sides of the head. They clipped back sections of hair and manually removed the nits that they found. I didn't feel like I was able to do my own hair well and I knew there was no way my husband would be thorough enough so this was a wonderful company to discover.

 

[need_a_Disney_fix]

Huh?

 

[disneygals]

Lice removal can take 30 days or more to be sure that they're gone. Olive oil can be used for 21 days at 4 day intervals and applied overnight. In the morning you should comb, comb, comb and EVERY day check for more nits. Olive oil doesn't kill lice or nits. It slows them down and helps for the comb-through. It also helps catch newly hatched nits.

Buy a robi-comb from walmart and use on dry clean hair. It will catch live lice, but not nits.

Many things that you read seem as though one application of olive oil or mayo will solve the problem. It won't. Every nit must be removed or they will hatch and you will be back at square one in a couple of weeks.

You can comb your own hair with a fine metal lice comb. Put gobs of conditioner on and comb, comb, comb.

Good Luck!!!

 

[kaygela]

Ok, maybe I am just cranky, but these replies are not helping. I feel like the posters are having a laugh at my expense. This is a horrific situation, and I am at wit's end. I am not feeling well and should be resting in bed. But, instead I am vacuuming, doing ridiculous amounts of laundry and wondering if we will ever be free of these bugs. My husband is a huge help but he is not as thorough as I am and thinks alot of what I am doing is unnecessary, but I am only doing what everyone says you should do and what makes sense to me. I was really looking for some advice or people that had experience doing the olive oil thing.

 

[kaygela]

Thank you Disneygal. I really appreciate the info.

 

[HelenePA]

I'm sorry I'm not laughing at you.. I'm laughing at professional nit pickers.. I hope you can be nit free soon, I couldn't even imigine having to deal with that. I'm glad there are professionals who do know what they are doing out there!

 

[kaygela]

Sorry. I really do think I had momentary crankiness. I am trying to find humor in this. In fact, last night, when we put the oil in our head and put on shower caps, I said we should do the same to our dog, take a family picture and send them out as holiday cards.

BTW, my DH just went to an all nite walgreen's and picked up a robi comb.

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

I had good luck with the olive oil - but I just applied it and left it on for 3 hours then shampooed it out and rinsed with vinegar. That combined with combing out the nits and lice did the trick.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

We just went through the headlice thing. My daughter brought them home from school and I ended up with them. I never felt so icked out in all my life.
We used something the pharmacist recommended and for the life of me I can't remember the name of it. It was safe to use. The key is to GET ALL THE NITS! Those are the little white eggs. After you do a treatment, you have to use that metal comb and go through the hair in sections, removing all nits. It can take a couple could of hours to do it properly.
Wash all bedding. Vacuum the car and all around the bed and bedding. Wash their pillow cases every single day.
Its a pain, but the only way.
Nit pick every single day, then 7 days from first treatment, do another treatment. You should be rid of them.

Go to hairfairies.com and order some of thier lice repellent. I sprayed her backpack, coat,etc.. with it so they don't crawl from one kid's stuff to hers. I also sprayed the sofa near where our heads would be, the car headrests, and also spray it in her hair while it is wet before drying. It must be working, because we have not had any more lice, and her school seems to be having a MAJOR problem with them!

Its patience and persistence with those nits! Look t hem up on the net so you can see what you are after!

 

[disneymarie]

Honey I am so sorry that your family has this problem. My sisters kids brought it home from school years ago and it took me all week to really get them gone. First the boys were ok about a crew cut, her husbands hair was thining so not a problem. The two girls and she had long hair and think. I used the rid product.....and the thin metal comb. I worked section by section just combing. In the mean time, sister took all sheets, bedding, pillow cases, couch blankets and pillows and swept, beat, washed and sprayed.

Reinvestation is a big problem and remooving the little nit on the shaft. If your husband will comb and comb a section this will help so much. Use a spot lamp, like if he has a workshop clip on one, they are at lowes adn Walmart inexpensive. the more light the easier to spot.

Check your coats, any laundry that could have been touched. I am not sure I think with sis we put coats outside in the sun then dryer.
Hats, hotwater and before clothes went in, add bleach.

I just got over a second round of fleas for five cats and that was no fun either.
If I were close enough I would come right over and help. I know from years of hairdressing career, how stressful it is.
As far as olive oil, that is new on me, we always used the one with a med in it,
How did oil come out of your hair?
hugs
dianne

 

[shortbun]

We used ONLY olive oil and picking nits with bright lamps, magnifying glasses and two different kinds of nit combs. I only did the olive oil twice, once in the beginning and once about 4 days later to condition my tired hair and drown anything that was still living. The thorough nit picking is the key. I had my best friend-and she is a real trooper-take a couple of days from my husband. We did a thorough comb through every day for a week and then because we had found nothing for a few days we went to every 3 days-then once a week and we were done.

 

[carolfoy]

Tea Tree oil -= the oldest trick in the book, just comb a little through with hair conditioner. The lice hate it and won't come back

 

[lewdyan1]

One additional hint, you don't have to wash the sheets and pillows everyday, just put them in the dryer on the hottest setting for 30 minutes and that will do the trick. Saves you one extra step.

 

[beattyfamily]

YES! Olive Oil worked for us.

We did the treatments a few times and still had nits (even after nit picking everyday a couple of times a day) and itchiness so I did the Olive Oil on everyone. It worked! It was the only way I got the remaining living lice on my girls thick, long hair. It slows them down and sometimes even drowns them. The treatments didn't seem to kill the living lice for us and we tried each of them.

After I did the Olive Oil on my girls, no more new nits and no more itchiness.

What we did was put it in our heads in the evening, covered it with a shower cap and then in the morning, I combed through their heads over and over, moving layers and I got 3 or 4 off of each of them and boom, that was pretty much the end of it! To get the oil out you'll have to wash the hair with (Dawn) dish detergent a couple of times to really get it out.

My sisters tease me that I should become a professional nit remover! They think I'm good at it and we joke about it. I knew there were professionals and have been tempted to hire one for myself. No one in my family can nit pick me properly (my girls are too young and DH is never home) so it's taken me longer to get rid of them but luckily I have.

Good luck!

 

[kaygela]

BEATTYFAMILY- If you are serious about becoming a nit-picker, check out Licebeater's website. They offer franchises. We paid them $300/hr to come to our house and check our heads and pull out any visible nits.

 

[beattyfamily]

BEATTYFAMILY- If you are serious about becoming a nit-picker, check out Licebeater's website. They offer franchises. We paid them $300/hr to come to our house and check our heads and pull out any visible nits.

Wow! That's some good money! I've done it for hours and hours on my girls and my sisters and my niece. I'm the family expert, unfortunately.

I may just look into it!

 

[kaygela]

Thank you everyone for the posts. We used a robi-comb last night and were amazed when it found a louse in DH's head on the first stroke . We did all of our heads. Then we threw all the bedding, again, into the washer, vacuumed and oiled up our heads again. This morning, we started the nit combing all over again. I don't know how I will ever be able to return to work tomorrow.