I vacuumed my hair trying to get rid of lice

My mum used to soak our hair in brown vinegar. Absolutely stank and stung my eyes 😂 but it worked x

Update: although just Googled and apparently it’s entirely anecdotal and doesn’t work 🤷🏼‍♀️ well my whole childhood has been a lie. Maybe I still have nits 25+ years later 🤷🏼‍♀️😂

Fucking hate lice, going through them yet again now. Combed the whole house, DS1 appears to be patient zero, seems to have only spread to me. I've had dandruff issues for twenty years, so an itchy scalp doesn't make me think "lice!"

Got Hedrin 8 hour treatment for free from the chemist (yay, Wales) and it appeared to be killing adults way before the 8 hours were up!

If I could choose two species to go extinct, it would be lice and fleas, fucking things!

I used to look through the hair especially around the nape and cut each hair off with an egg with nail sissors and throw it away. It ended up being the best way but hard to do it on yourself.

Yes, I’d second the electric zapper comb. Less messy and more effective than all the lotions, and it’s quite satisfying frying the little bastards.

You need one of those electronic zappa combs. My daughter used to use it first thing when she got in the house after school. Well passed that stage now - but when she was in primary school - it was a constant issue.

We had a cat that loved the vacuum cleaner, he had long hair (and probably fleas) it made his grooming so much easier and I'm sure got rid of a lot of fleas, flea dirt and eggs. He was an absolute pain, as soon has you got the vacuum out he was under it.

Another vote for the NittyGritty comb. Regular combs, even really fine-toothed ones just don’t work.
After years of trying everything, this is the only thing that always works.

This is genius.

Imagine greeting the parcel delivery guy arriving at the 2hr clingfilm stage though!

I used to buy the ivermectin tablets from an online pharmacy when I was desperate. Think they're not licensed here but think they use them commonly in the USA. We're still all alive and they work well. I use liquid ivermectin on the chickens when they had lice but did decide against dosing the kids with that :)

It won’t work, lice and eggs are too sticky. It will be like when you try a hoover up a sticker that’s on the floor and it won’t budge

For me I mean, I didn't give Ds2 a dye job haha.

Hair dye seemed to work when Ds2 had them (he was in year 8 and absolutely riddled because I had forgotten they existed ])

Anywhere near these people OP!

https://hairforceclinics.com/

Straighteners won't get rid of the eggs not even sure they'll do anything to the lice. They're hardy little buggers!

I can't be the only one that's been itching like mad since reading this?

This sounds awful, my mum used to always put a tiny bit of vinegar in our hair as kids as kept the nits away.

Vamousse is fab as a one time treatment. Also add a whole bottle of tea tree oil in the family shampoo, it will kill any new ones. Get everyone to leave the shampoo on the hair for a good 10 minutes, before rinising out.

Lyclear is rubbish.

Nothing much worked for us. We got something prescribed by a gp with different ingredients...worked a charm. But you must repeat it 7 days later or its a waste of time.

I remember having nits as I kid in the 80s. My mum was away so it was just me and my Dad - he had me lean over the bath with a towel over my face and poured a bottle of vodka over my head. Did the trick 🤣

Vacuuming doesn't work - nits are cemented on to the hair shaft. Anything you got from that is purely in your mind.

Straighteners reduce the load, but as there's a couple pf millimetres right next to your scalp that they cannot reach and because adult lice are mobile, you cannot get them all. But it's useful in reducing the load.

You needs to treat and condition/comb extremely thoroughly for 3 weeks. Because you need to cover the entire reproductive life-cycle of the nits. So that's every two to three days for 21 days.

Use either the pesticide version of treatment (but be aware that some nits are gaining resistance) or the smothering sort alongside.

I used washing up liquid to suffocate lice when I couldn't get rid of them in my daughters hair for ages. Apparently some become immune to the solutions.

I have really thick, really curly hair and after my DS brought them home from pre school had a nightmare getting rid of them. In the end the only thing that seemed to work was a home hair dye kit and hair straightening. A lucky side effect of going grey!

DD has thick curly hair nits drove me crazy. I found it easier if I straightened her hair before using the nitty gritty comb and we didn't have lots of tears.
She would scream the house down if I used the comb when her hair was curly.

They used a little hoover thing to get rid of the mites or whatever they were on the baby hedgehogs when we took them to a rescue place. I think you can pay for head lice treatment where someone comes and does the same thing to your head?

I've done that. It didn't work, because nits stick and lice cling on tight, but it was interesting.