What is this?

[albert]

Just had a message from DS's school saying they have detected another outbreak of head lice. Never having had this myself I don't really know what to look for. I couldn't see anything except for 1 tiny little 'thing' which jumped. It was sort of rice coloured and only one on its own. If this is not lice then how can I prevent him from getting it? Is there a natural way because I don't live in the UK and don't know what products are available here

[piffle]

the only way to getrid of them is to wet the hair thoroughly with cheap conditioner, buy a good metal lice comb and comb through the hair every 2nd day forever.
Honestly it seems like forever you can slo buy a robicomb which electronically zaps the lice but I have never got my son to sit through it cos it hurts like hell!
Good luck...

[anorak]

albert, what you describe sounds like a louse.

What you need to do is put lots of conditioner on your son's hair and then comb it through with a lice comb (a fine tooth comb available at chemists) The nits (eggs) cement themselves onto the hairs and you can't remove them. But this dislodges all the adults. If you repeat this every day for a couple of weeks you will catch all the nits when they hatch out before they have a chance to lay eggs of their own.

Also treat the rest of the household as they spread very easily. To be on the safe side I would wash all bedlinen and towels on the hottest wash they can take.

[SPARKLER1]

Sounds like it could be. Only takes one to spread. That one lays loads of eggs which hatch and the cycle continues.
There are lots of lotions etc you can buy but the best treatment is to wash hair, condition and then leaving conditioner on comb through with a nit comb. Continue this every couple of days. Eventually you should be able to remove all lice and eggs.

[Marina]

Lice don't jump, they crawl. But the colour sounds right for a "nit", or egg case, that you might have flicked with your fingernail I suppose!
We dry comb over a piece of white paper first, using a special fine-toothed nit comb - plastic are better and less harsh than the metal ones if you have a choice.
Then we wash using tea tree shampoo and then SLATHER on tea tree conditioner. Then we wet comb while the conditioner is in, leaving it five mins or so in the process. The conditioner eases the wet-combing process and the little blighters can't move out of the way.
An even better natural oil is neem oil, it doesn't smell too bad. So you could look for products containing it in your pharmacy.
Where are you then Albert?

[albert]

I'm in Italy but my Italian is not too good. Can I get tee tree shampoo in the Body Shop, we've got one of them here?!

[Marina]

I'm pretty sure they do it.
You can get "natural" bugbusting kits from UK companies such as Biz Niz and Nitty Gritty, by the way. Nitty Gritty's products are ever so good.

[puddle]

Albert the nitty gritty combs are brilliant - they have a website. they have conditioner and stuff too but IMO it doesn't matter what kind of conditioner you use - just something thick enough to trap the little blighters while you comb them out. I think the advice is to comb every 3-4 days until the comb is nit free (took 12 days with my ds, but he had loads by the time I realised - nit virgin at the time).

[puddle]

Marina - great minds

[bundle]

i'd get some teatree oil (sure they have that in the body shop) and a big container of cheap conditioner and use the method marina mentioned. comb every 3 or 4 days for a couple of weeks.

[albert]

Thanks everyone. I've just done the wash, condition and comb procedure - fortunately I had a nit comb, don't know where it came from, I think DS nursery gave them out once, long ago. DS was an angel but he does have short hair so it wasn't too much of a problem. Think I found one of the blighters unfortunatley. Off to the Body Shop tomorrow to see what I can get there and will attempt a visit to the pharmacy and mime and gesticulate maddly!!