What do I do?!?

[Halloweenqueen]

Don't cancel...you'll get through this.

Two years ago my daughter was sent home with lice. I went crazy, buying every product I could find at Walgreens. I cleaned the house, bagged the stuffed animals, etc.

My husband told me to take the kids to the doctor to make sure which kid had it.

Guess what...no one had it. My daughter had a crusty scalp that turned out to be dried shampoo. (she didn't rinse throughly)

I spent a bundle on this experience.


My doctor said that cheap home remedies (like the cheap conditioner) work as good as the $100 worth of stuff I bought.

Good luck...time will pass quickly and you will be on your way to the "happy place"!

 

[Traveliz]

The advice for us from the school / daycare / health department is to get really cheap conditioner. The sort of stuff that is home brand and cover the kids hair with it.

The lice breath through a hole near thier butts.... and the conditioner blocks that hole so they cannot move around - because otherwise you can play hunt the lice as much as you like, but they will just run away as you move to thier spots. There is a 7 day growth cycle from hatching to when they are able to lay eggs again. So if you clear out the hatched ones, and as much of the eggs as you can, you re-do the same treatment again to get the rest before they breed.

That is what my hairdresser suggested too and it worked best of all -- and then at the end my daughter had soft silky hair.

Liz

 

[kellydizfan]

Another conditioner recommendation here. Our school nurse swears by it. I did the crisco method, left in for four hours, with a shower cap on. My one DD has very fine hair, the other one has very thick hair. I ended up shaving my DS hair because he wouldn't sit still. He was young at that point. I did not figure out how he got them either. It was gross. His hair does not grow right after we did that so we have to keep it real short.

I would not cancel your trip. You can fix this. Even if you leave everthing bagged while you are away, the longer the better. I did use the furniture spray also. Good luck!

 

[DisneyMomx7]

I feel your pain.

About 4 years ago our school had an outbreak of headlice. Luckily it was caught early for us - 1 dd had one nit, and other dd had 2 (ds didn't have any).

I was completely exhausted, but they never reoccurred.

Here is what we did. Did everyone's hair with Nix. Bouth a steel fine tooth combed and combed and recombed every day. Bought the spray for mattresses, couches, car seats etc. Vaccumed the mattresses, rugs and furniture twice a day. Washed everything that could be washed in hot water and dryed on the highest setting. Everything else went to the dry cleaners. Bagged up all the stuffed animals for a month.

It was exhausting and expensive but we got rid of them relatively quickly, compared to some of the stories I heard. We did repeat the Nix treatment, I think I was 7 or 10 days later. Good luck!

 

[Mermaid02]

My friend coated her daughters long, thick, curly hair with olive oil both times she came home with them. Of course she did all the other things too- bagged the animals- washed the bedding etc.

I wouldn't cancel- your trip is over 2 weeks away- you can get rid of them!

 

[englishteacha]

Don't panic! Take a deep breath. Lice are a rite of passage. I'm a middle school teacher and we still have some lice issues on occasion. Some tips:
1. remind your kids not to share brushes, hats, combs, hair accessories, etc.
2. put your daughters' hair up if it's long enough and spray with hairspray. Lice like clean hair, and the hairspray is a deterrent.

Will your girls be out of school the next week? Will you have to stay home to take care of them? Another thought: would your girls like shorter haircuts for the summer? Less hair makes the lice and nits easier to find. When I was little my hair was kept above my shoulders in length, and when I got lice when I was small, it was pretty easy for my mom to get rid of them. My niece got them and she had long, long hair and it took SOOO much time to go through her hair every day to check.

I would not cancel a trip due to lice 2 weeks beforehand. You're doing everything right. You've gotten some excellent advice. I'd try the conditioner idea...make it into a spa treatment for the girls. While it sits, paint their nails and watch a princess movie!

 

[720L]

Do the RID treatment, buy the special comb, comb through their hair EVERY night for as long as the package says nits can live (10 days?). Keep their hair braided and hair sprayed day and night. When you comb through the hair, do it in small sections, this took me half an hour every night, but it worked and my daughter has long hair. Good luck!

 

[Carys]

I would not cancel a trip due to lice 2 weeks beforehand. You're doing everything right. You've gotten some excellent advice. I'd try the conditioner idea...make it into a spa treatment for the girls. While it sits, paint their nails and watch a princess movie!

Agree 100% and think the spa treatment idea is great! Way to turn a negative into a positive

 

[Disney Doll]

Don't cancel the trip. I know parents get all crazed about lice, but they're just little bugs. It's not cancer, for goodness sakes. And it has nothing to do with cleanliness. Every kid ins chool gets lice at least once in their school career.

The PPs have given you great advice, but it will take time and really keeping on top of it. But calm down......

 

[clutter]

I know you're exhausted and slightly hysterical. I'm gonna try to talk you down! First of all, that metal nit comb? Useless.

Sit outside in the sun and get you some hair clips to partition off one section of hair at a time. Start at the nape of the neck or over the ears. These areas are usually the worst. Nits look like little spots of dried glue...you know how it will dry clear? Those are empty nits, which have hatched. White nits are still incubating. You have to hand strip the nits. Grasp the hair shaft between your thumb and forefinger just above the nit and strip down the hair shaft. You should be able to feel it as a tiny bump under your finger and you should be able to feel it being pulled down the hair shaft by your fingers. The nits are VERY small. This is very tedious work. It is best done in bright light with no shadows or outside in the direct sunlight, so you can see your work. I dropped nits into a small dish of rubbing alcohol as I worked.

For your vacuum cleaner, I would change all the filters, wash the reuseable ones and wash the canister. Hot soapy water should be just fine.

Again, I can't stress how important it is to hand strip out every last nit. I know it is time-consuming, tiring, back breaking work, but if you want to be rid of these buggers in one round of treatment, it's the surest way to be sure they are all gone.

Skip the mayo, cetaphil, etc treatments. None of them work any better than RID. The Robi comb I have no experience with, so I am not a good one to ask on that.

I'm in total agreement with this. I used a child on the bed, high intensity lamp and a popsicle stick to work my way through the head. Every night for about 10 days or so. I prefer NIX to RID. The thing is that the shampoo kills the living lice. There will likely be some nits that survive. Nits hatch in 7 days and lay eggs 7 days after that. Thus, you shampoo, get rid of what nits you can, shampoo in 7 days to kill off any remaining lice before they can lay more nits. My dd was a baby with fine hair, and there still were lice on day 7. After that, I looked for stray nits, but we were done.

Think of it this way. At least you have something FUN to look forward to after this is all over!!

 

[princessesrule]

Thanks for the advice- and for talking me down! I guess "slightly hysterical" is probably an understatement at this point.
I did do what you described above as well today. We sat on our back steps when the sun was out and I started with the "dual comb" method and it really did get A LOT of the junk out- scary actually how much was still left- but then I just started using my fingers and nails. I got one of those sticky roller things and put the nits on there. My eyes were crossing by the end and then I started panicking. How the he** am I going to get ALL of them out?

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT!!! It sucked so bad. I was crying and exhausted by the time I had them all hand picked out of my daughters' hair.

I don't think you should cancel your trip. You should be ok if you got them all out.

 

[Lorix2]

I would not cancel your trip, you have plenty of time.

My experience with lice was horrible too.

I refused to use RID or the perithimin prescribed by the pedi because of the harsh chemicals in them.

You've heard the term "nit picking"? Well I'm sure it came from dealing with lice.

What worked immediately for us was setting up a very strong light bulb above whomever I was working on. As you separate the hair with a comb, the adult lice would scamper from the light and you could see the direction they went, comb back a few strands and pluck them out.

What people miss are the baby lice (nits). Those keep growing and multiply and that's why the process lasts so long. The baby lice are no larger than a pin head with a black dot on them from what I remember. Using a bright light shining on the scalp is the only way to see them, but you really have to look at them attached to a strand of hair.

As soon as I got the all the adult lice I could find, I got the babies and we were done.

It's painstakingly time consuming, but that's the only way to get rid of them fast and without harmful chemicals on your scalp.

Hope this helps and hope you go on your trip

 

[mjkacmom]

I've heard that people haven't had good luck with OTC lice treatments, but they worked on my kids! Everyone was treated, and then re-treated, I bagged the stuffed animals, nit-picked, vacuumed, washed everything, and we were lice-free in under a week.

 

[mickeyboat]

DD9 had it in November. It was a ton of work, but no one else in the family got it and she did not have a recurrence. Here is what we did.

I picked through her hair and removed whatever I could find. I found a few live bugs (eww). Then I used the Rid shampoo and picked again. Before bed, I picked again. I think I picked for 6 hours that first day. DH vacuumed the entire house, including the beds and did laundry.

DD was ok to go to school the next day, but we did stop in the nurse's office to have her take a look. There were still a few nits. We picked twice a day for 10 days, and then re applied the Rid shampoo. I think I picked for a few more days after that, but didn't find any more. We washed bedding every day and vacuumed her room every day.

Don't panic. It's a lot of work, but it will be o.k.

Denae

 

[Mandychelle79]

Just went through this a few weeks ago. I locked her in the bathroom with me and a black light. They glow, but so does everything so i was finding things that were not nits and picking them out. I shaved my sons head. quick and easy. We bagged the toys for 4 days which was the amount of time we were told to. Our school has a no nit policy so she had to be checked before going in to her class. She passed inspection.

 

[Inigo]

Don't be ashamed of the kids getting lice. Cleaner hair is more likely to end up with lice than dirty hair. Dirty hair is slick, and the lice can't grab hold. Clean hair isn't as slick, so the lice can grab on and stay.

Once you get rid of the lice and nits, you need to go to a health food store and get a small bottle of tea tree oil. After your kids wash their hair, put a couple drops (not much) of the oil on your palms, rub your hands together, and then run your hands all through their hair. Lice don't like this stuff, for some reasons.

DD hated the smell of the tea tree oil when she was younger, but she liked it more than me delousing her.

As to how you get rid of every last nit, you check, check, check, and then check again. I felt like a mommy monkey as I picked through DD's hair over and over.

Good luck.

 

[61292cna]

First of all take a deep breath & remember this too shall pass! Second you're not going to lose that much more by waiting, so don't cancell just yet!! One of the PP's had a great idea about packing as much as possible, as you're washing clothes anyway, leaving less to do at last minute. You've done their hair once already, so they should be due again about the 20th, this should leave plenty of time, if for any reason you would feel a third treatment was needed, although I've mostly heard this from moms who just wanted to be sure (can't say I blame them). We used a product called Lice MD( there is a coupon on coupons.com) it is a gel & more natural, so it has to be left on longer, but comes with a cap & has a liccorice type odor. Also a hairdryer helps loosen the eggs & sends live ones running, making them easier to see. One thing I know for sure, you will be elated when this is over & extra happy if you're still going to WDW!!!

 

[veraletta]

Call your daughter doctor he will call in prescription that will work, you will not have to look for any more bugs.

My daughter got it while at Disney she was trying on hats, which I never let my children do after that. We always ask for a hat behind the counter.

 

[luvsJack]

There is no reason to even consider canceling your trip. Calm down. There is no reason to get in a tizzy about "removing every single nit"; again calm down. Also, were they sent home because some nits were seen (as in a couple), because they saw an infestation of nits or because they saw some bugs? There is a difference and seeing just a couple of nits may take no more than a treatment and some combing.

RID or whichever treatment you choose will kill the bugs. You comb out as many nits as you can. Retreat the hair in 7 days or whatever it is and it will kill those that hatched use the comb again. Its just not that big of a deal as long as you treat them. The RID spray does great on anything that cannot be washed--such as couches and matresses etc.; but is not always necessary unless the kids have been infected for a long time. Wash all sheets, towels, etc. in hot water and dry in a hot dryer (letting them dry a bit extra on hot will help too). Put all dolls and stuffed animals in garbage bags and tie shut, the bugs will be dead in 24 hours. If it won't hurt the stuffed animals or the dryer, putting them in a hot dryer would help too.

If you are that worried, call your kid's dr. The dr. can give you a prescription shampoo that is a bit stronger than RID.

To keep it from happening again, keep the kids hair pulled up in pony tails, braids, etc. and spray with hair spray every morning or use leave in conditioner kind of thick and pull their hair back.

 

[quentina]

I love the internet...but looking up "lice" online leads to millions of horror stories and I guess that's part of the reason I'm so freaked. I have bagged up stuffed animals, washed sheets and bedding in hot water and dried in dryer at high temps, vacuumed and will definitely do the 2nd treatment next weekend (we used RID). I spent several hours yesterday and again today going through their heads with a metal fine tooth comb to get rid of nits and any "leftover" lice. I plan to do the same tomorrow. But then do I do olive oil? mayo? cetaphil? Do I buy the robi comb? Should I keep vacuuming? And the directions on many of the sites, say to "throw the bag away" after vacuuming but what about the bagless, which is what I have? Do I just empty it into the trash???
Do I call out sick the next week and use the rest of my sick days to make sure they are completely gone?
I am slightly hysterical (and exhausted) at this point so I'm rambling I know.
It's just that we've had a very tough few years and we scrimped and saved for this trip. I can't believe this is happening...




My husband thinks I'm blowing this all out of proportion and I think he's taking it too lightly.

First...take a breath, it happens, its part of school age students. Some are lucky enough to be overlooked, some are not.

The only thing I would do prior to throwing away the vacuum bag is put some cornstarch down on the rug and vacuum it up. This suffocates them..also works with fleas or any small bug. Then double bag the contents and toss them. Run the sweeper a few times a day. Don't forget to check yourself and family members daily. First sign of a white egg, put the rid on.

The lice will be a thing of the past by the time your trip comes....do not cancel, enjoy it and have fun.