Experienced nit folk

[Merename]

So I suspect I picked up nits at work. Have never dealt with them before, kids are 4 and 16mo. For a couple days I’ve been itchy, had DH look last night and he thought he saw some white things at the back. Ordered nitty gritty comb last night but hasn’t arrived, so ended up at chemist and bought white combs, and Hedrin as a back up. Combed us all in bath with conditioner this afternoon, DH did me, spent ages, we didn’t find anything.

Do you think if it were nits it would be more obvious? I haven’t felt particularly itchy since doing it so I’m wondering if it’s been a big psychosomatic experience! The kids hadn’t been itching that I’ve seen, but it was driving me mad itching myself last night!

Should I do Hedrin tonight to put my mind at rest maybe?

IIRC from when I googled it, head lice go into some sort of suspended animation and clamp themselves onto the nearest hair when the hair is in water.
And that’s how they survive their hosts doing things like hair washing and swimming.

It’s also why wet combing is more effective than dry combing.

Lice have got 2 little antenna on an ovalish body with legs that are close together- it's definitely bug shaped if you look close enough.

Egg cases are oval shaped, glued to the hair very near to the scalp. If the nit hasn't hatched, then it is usually darker coloured (brown-black) because the nit is there, and hatched ones are white, a brighter white than dandruff. Pay special attention to behind the ears and the nape of the neck as this is warmer than other parts, but lice are happy to lay anywhere.

If I know DC have nits, I do use Hedrin and find it very effective. But I squirt it on and comb through with the nitty gritty several times. I find this gets a lot of lice out, but I can also be sure that the lotion is right down at the shaft of each hair, where the little ones are. It only takes leaving 1 of those for the cycle to begin again. It also means you only use half as much Hedrin this way. I leave on overnight and then wash in the morning. It's still important to recheck the hair a few days later and repeat if you find live lice.

Also, I wear an apron and/or brush myself down with a clothes brush after treating the DC. I have had lice fall from their hair onto my legs and then start to crawl towards the head (their survival instinct). I doubt they would be in a fit condition to reproduce if they ever were to get there but I think lice can crawl/pass a lot better than we give them credit for. I think a lot of the problems are caused by pegs at school where children hang their coats/scarves, the school I work at has lockers and we seem to have much lower incidences but that could be anecdotal.

Eggs get stuck in the nitty gritty comb and it's easy to miss them when first starting out.

Use de tangle spray as your slippy function.

Yesterday I went through dc hair. One was clear, not a single egg or lice but the other dd, the one whose at the infected school had some egg. I always plunge the comb straight into scolding water after each comb through and check the comb before re brushing.

Anything will come off in the cup and you can clearly see. Wipe again with tissue before back in the hair.

You'll clearly see what's in the cup.
I wouldn't do in Bath, I'm not sure if eggs could stay on body etc.

Lice can be very small. I had one on a tissue, it wasn't clear what it was then after a few seconds it started to walk 😬

In boiling water you can use phone light to shine on it and check what's there.

Inspite of brushing through dd hair in sections I only found one adult lice and lots of eggs. I will do this again tomorow then try vammouse.

However I've seen her with her pals, they all put heads together... Hug each other... Inspite of me warning agaisnt this...

We need a nit nurse and even school nitty gritty combs!

I wouldn’t do it in the bath either. I sit my kids backwards on the loo ( seat down obv ) , prop an iPad on the cistern to keep them amused and fill the sink with very hot water, where I rinse the comb each time.

A while bowl filled with boiling water in the sink also works.

I wear an apron as the Hedrin etc is oily and very messy.

If I’m just using the conditioner I can pop the chid straight into the shower once I’m finished. The nasty chemicals have to stay on for a few hours / overnight .

Thanks guys, so helpful to hear all the wisdom of experience. Just done another comb of me and both DDs, outwith bath this time. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but the conditioner will not just rinse off the comb when I swish it in the bowl! Maybe the conditioner is too thick? Using BodyShop banana stuff. Sure I have detangler somewhere so that could be better. So a lot of rinsing and wiping on loo roll. When I wiped I could see some unbelievably tiny brown specks, not egg shaped tho, less than a pinhead even! Didn’t seem what I imagine I’m looking for.

Do you see the eggs on the hair when you comb through usually? Or just on comb/bowl? DD is redhead so imagine things may be easier to see on her than my brown.

Some conditioner is really thick and harder to rinse off. Maybe try a cheap one for head lice purposes.
When DD has had a lot of them we have used the Hedrin or Lycoclear stuff which suffocate the lice and the eggs. That does work but it takes a lot shampoo to clean it out the hair.
I comb through with the Nitty Grittycomb weekly now. It's a pain but I figure if there's anything there we can get them out before they multiply!

Ha @Merename, you are Scottish !

I use very hot water , even boiling water to dip the comb as it dissolves the conditioner better.

I rarely see anything in the hair, only in the bowl. On darkest haired child I can sometimes see the eggs which look like dandruff but smaller and non flaky.

The are hard to see on light hair.

Do you see the eggs on the hair when you comb through usually?

Depends on the hair.

My blonde DC, I’ve seen the dark unhatched eggs on the hair. Not the white hatched egg cases.

My mousy brown haired DC has a terribly flaky scalp anyway, so while I’ve never spotted any eggs there even when he’s had lice, the hatched eggs would probably have blended in with the dandruff and the unhatched ones would blend in with his hair colour. (I’ve spotted adult lice crawling around his hair though. They’d have probably blended in well enough colour wise for me to not spot them if they hadn’t been moving)

Either way, it’s generally easier to spot eggs / lice on the comb.

Eggs will be found very close to the scalp on the shaft of an individual strand of hair.

I've only picked them off using my fingers. Never tried hair straighteners but then I'd be worried about burning.

Eggs will be well and truly stuck. Firm to the touch. That's why combs don't manage to catch them because 1- the eggs are glued onto the hair and 2- the space between the teeth of the comb is too wide.

Combs will remove lice of course. There was one time I only found eggs on DDs hair and no lice.

Then another time she had an infestation. Even though I was doing my weekly maintenance checks (peering into DDs hair around the neck and ears). I thought she was clear until I saw two lice walk into the middle of her hair parting right smack bang in the the middle.

They are extremely good at what they do.

I’m always amazed how they spread.
Presumably you need two, a male and female. they need to find each other and get busy. Or a pregnant female?

I am, @EL0ISE, what gave me away?!

I did do boiling water, so think that conditioner is too thick. I am also leaning towards there may actually be nothing going on - I have found nothing that meets the description of eggs, and one bug that could be fluff. I’m wondering what else could have irritated my scalp. But probably in a few days we’ll be crawling, and I’ll be in no doubt!! Thanks for the pics and clear info again, @MrNobody. I’m looking forward to my mum coming tonight and checking me again - I have distant memories of having them as a child, I think she knows what she’s doing.

And yes, @EvilPea, how do they even find each other? Wikipedia confirms that they do need to mate.

OP - you MUST use the hedrin too. Conditioner and nit comb alone will not get rid of nits and my mum was the nit nurse at school so I know what I’m talking about! I’m convinced the reason nits are so prevalent is because plenty of parents think just using a nit comb/conditioner gets rid of them. It doesn’t - they need to be killed!

My ds was constantly getting them, I’d use nit treatment and then the comb to get rid of them all but the boy he sat next to in class had a mother who thought that putting in conditioner and using a comb was enough. It isn’t, so ds would then have them again a month or so later.

It’s really annoying when you go to the effort to do it properly and other people in the class don’t (I suspect I lot of parents don’t want to pay out for the stuff) If everyone just zapped their dcs heads with nit-killing chemicals they’d all die and we might get some respite from it for a while!

They aren’t always easy to spot. I checked my daughter and found what looked like tangled bits of hair - it was only when I put them on a bit of loo roll that it was obvious they had legs. They were corn coloured.

If you do find them, let the other parents in the class know (if you have a class WhatsApp group). It’s really annoying to deal with your kids’ nits and then have to do it all over again later on because they keep going round the class.

I did do hedrin on myself, on sat night, as I am the itchy one. Still itching in exactly same way the following day. A lot of the itching has been at the top of my head, but sometimes nape of neck. I think if I get any clearer sign that we definitely have them in next few days, I’ll try vamousse on us all in a oner.

I struggle to identify anything smaller than a fully grown adult with the naked eye so bought a jeweller's loupe on Amazon to peer at them after I've combed them out. It's about 40x magnification and not for the faint-hearted but eliminates all doubt! When you use the nitty gritty comb the eggs often come off with a little tail attached which is the glue that was wrapped around the hair.

was never in head to head contact so that’s why it’s all a bit suspect

According to the pharmacist i asked after bringing them back from work again, lice can survive off your head for a little while so you don't need to have been in head to head contact if say one has fallen on to the back of a chair then climbs up your hair. You also don't need two, you just need a pregnant one.

Makes sense, I’ve been sat on the sofa a couple of times for a long while in last couple weeks since the family told me the child had them.

And thanks for the wee tail description- shall look out for that!

So mums done another check, nothing found. And a side joy of the alternative conditioner we used gave me an allergic reaction, red streaks coming away from my scalp. So probably I’m going to continue to be itchy from that. I think I need to leave my poor head alone for a couple of days and reassess! Thanks again to all of you for talking me through it. May all your kids be nitfree....

I remember the days when every note from the school alerting us to an outbreak resulted in me having an itchy head. 😆

And did that last for days, do you recall @Esspee?!!

Cider vinegar and White wine vinegar is great for loosening the glue which sticks the eggs. Better to spray than pour on though it’s murder if it gets in your eyes,

Sorry not a de tangler brush...

De tangle spray.

It's 1 pound usually. Its a spray to put on hair to help de tangle it. It's thin, makes the hair slippy and doesn't have that build up conditioner has.

It does the same thing thing as conditioner but it's much easier to use.

You can saturate the hair with it.

Comb hair to get knots out. Then one stroke through. Right to the end and into small cup of boiling water. Make sure the boiling water reaches the top of the comb

Wait a few seconds... Eggs or nits will fall straight into the water. Wipe on pre laid out tissue to make sure all eggs gone. Brush through next section of hair.

Also before all this if course break hair into sections.

As pp said also put comb through at different angles.

I can’t stop scratching now!