DS 9 riddled with headlice, have tried everything under the sun. Please help!

[Hanarb]

DS 9 has been riddled with lice for 3 weeks now. I have tried treatment and spent nearly £100 on various remedies. He has very long, thick surfy hair and it is a nightmare to treat. His teacher has notified me which is mortifying. His childminder said she would get the clippers and shave his hair off (I’m not sure if she was joking). I don’t own any hair cutting equipment but this is seriously taking up so much of my time and causing a lot of stress. What should I do?

Try nitrid.

That stuff cleared a year long infestation, it's only about £4 a bottle. Places like home bargains sell it but it's on amazon too......and believe me I'd tried everything. All the lotions and mousses, I even tried white vinegar and listerine 😬

I was just about to say the same as this.
Also from my experience sitting the child in the bath to keep the lice 'contained' whilst you are de-licing.
I don't think any of the chemical products do any better really and considering how often they are likely to get lice that's a lot of chemicals !

It won't be the only time he gets them.
If you can't comb his hair you have no choice but to cut it short. If you can comb his hair you and he have choices. I would , and did, go with conditioner and comb nightly until clear and then a regular comb through until he is through this stage. He has to cooperate and I do think keeping hair tied back at nursery/ school helps a bit.

Definitely this. Don’t cut it if he doesn’t want it cut! Just mix neat tea tree oil into tea tree shampoo and conditioner and use daily. And comb it through with the nitty gritty comb, wiping the comb after every motion through the hair. My daughter had long thick hair and this was the only thing that worked for us.

I got my ds’s hair buzzed to a grade 3 when he was 6yo for this very reason. It’s been buzzed ever since and he’s now 18yo. It’s wonderful. Never needed brushing/combing, dries in about 10 seconds with a towel. Never any bits again as they don’t like to live too close to the warm head. And always looks perfect.

My Ds had thick surfer boy hair at that age too. Everyone did!

the only thing that worked was conditioner and combing them out every day. It’s time consuming!

I didn’t cut my son’s hair. But it wasn’t as long as your boys.

also spray leave in conditioner on hair after every wash. I used L’Oréal kids tangle tamer. Rumour at school gates that this would stop reinfeststion. Whether that is true I don’t know, but never happened again.

Best way is a haircut. Drastically but effective.

NIT NOT. Worked on my child's extremely thick hair when the rest didn't.

You said you’ve treated him every night for 3 weeks? Have you been putting on a nit treatment every night for 3 weeks?

Give him a choice:

1. He sits still for as long as it takes to comb his hair and the has it tied up and out of the way at school.
2. He has it cut very short so he doesn't get more head lice.

The choice is his. FWIW this is why boys had short hair in the past and girls tied hair back/up, because the lice move from head to head when kids put their heads close together. I think your son is being constantly reinfested.

My DS was absolutely riddled with them as a teenager with very long, which curly hair. He must have had them for ages. We did conditioner & combing every 2 days (after the first treatment) for about a month & it worked. Section the hair into very small sections.

Get his hair cut shorter and teach him to use a nit comb every day. As someone whose primary school had nits as an almost permanent problem, this worked for us.

OP, you don't have to shave his hair!

We all had nits ( family of 5) .
I don't mind applying chemicals, but they don't work alone.

You HAVE to comb, ( Nitty Gritty comb) after washing and loads of conditioner ( brush before washing to minimise tangles after washing).
I disagree that the conditioner needs to be applied to dry hair.

So, this will take time and effort for about three weeks. But, apply chemical treatment, by all means, ( only once though), then...EVERY 48 hours, you wash and heavily condition the hair.
Pop him in front of the TV, and, as long as no SEN, explain this is essential. He may be grumpy, but you need to be the parent...you section and comb. It'll take about 45 minutes each time. No need for every night, but every 48 hours essential. You comb, wiping after each stroke, until you are convinced there aren't any nits/lice ( you can identify the eggs, they are different from scalp debris, like dandruff).
RELIGIOUSLY for 3 weeks. Then same weekly, to check, until he goes to secondary school, ( less chance of huddled groups, though phone use might make my statement null and void!).
Please check yours, partner's and other family member's hair; you may be surprised, especially if no itching.
Both my partner and I had them with absolutely no symptoms.
Just cuddling on the sofa to read together is enough to catch them.
Good luck, it's a tedious part of parenting.
I really hope you don't shave his hair.

And of course when he goes into school he probably passes a few on to his friends, who then obligingly pass them around to others. Your child is a walking nit hazard and you need to deal with him. Tell him he either gets his hair cut so you can manage it or he puts up with the combing every night to break the breeding cycle. If he is teeming then he has had them for some time so get family members to check their hair too.

My daughter had long thick hair and always seemed to get nits, it was awful.

The only thing that ever worked was the nitty gritty comb, which we did every other day I think until clear (this can take a while) and then we did it weekly just to maintain. It was time consuming but they never got the opportunity to come back full force!

Also use a tea tree shampoo ongoing.

Cutting your DS shorter might help, but I think the full shave might be a bit extreme at this point, unless he specifically wants that done.

My daughter kept getting reinfected by a girl at school whose parents never seemed to be able to get rid of them.

In the end it got so bad that at beginning of summer holidays I did one treatment, followed a week or so later by a treatment with different chemicals. That seemed to kill off the ones that were resistant to the opposite Chemicals. I was very close to shaving her head at that point. Oddly none of her siblings got them!

Don't beat yourself up OP, it's a really common occurrence. I used to use clippers on my DS when he was little (a number 7 or 8 sort of length) and watched youtube videos on how to clipper hair nicely. Nitty Gritty comb twice a week as a preventative. He never had nits. My DD was a different story - she hated having her hair combed/washed etc, so I had it cut to a short bob. XH hated me for doing that but he wasn't the one who had to fight to her hair washed/combed!!

DD has had nits 3 times. Nitty Gritty comb twice a day for a couple of weeks sorts things, and then I do a twice weekly comb through to prevent things. Last time she had nits was last year. I cut her hair to a bob (she asked me to cut it, so I watched a youtube video and amazingly managed to not screw it up!). Good luck! x

My kids were riddled for about 9 months and it was a complete nightmare. I tried everything and the only thing that eventually broke the grip on them was soaking the hair in full fat coke and a nitty gritty comb. It took up an entire Saturday but was the most productive Saturday of my life. My DD's hair is like candyfloss and was so knotty but I persevered and got rid of them.

Hi OP.

I have very thick curly hair and got a terrible case of headlice when I was a child. We got rid of them by slathering my hair in a bottle of cheap conditioner, sectioning it and going through each section meticulously with a nit comb.

My hair was bra strap length and I wanted to keep it, but if I'd been a boy I think it would have been a good moment to have it cut shorter.

I don't think you need to subject your DS to a buzz cut but getting rid of some of the length would certainly help with the nit situation.

In your position I would try cutting it shorter so it curls around his scalp rather than shaving the whole lot off which might be traumatising for you both if his curly hair is part of his identity.

There are two things you need to get rid of: the lice themselves, and the eggs.

The lice are easy to spot, you know what to look for, they're horrible little creatures with legs. See them, comb them out. Keep going until you can't see any more, then keep going a bit longer.

The eggs are harder to spot because they are tiny and translucent and stick to the hair right at the roots. You need to scrape the nit comb hard against his scalp and make sure you're getting right in there at the roots where the eggs stick to the hair. Unfortunately, if you're doing it right, it should be a little bit painful and his scalp will be sore afterwards. It may actually be easier to scrape the eggs off the roots of his hair before cutting it, because you will have some length to hold onto, whereas if he only has a few inches of hair left it might be difficult to get enough purchase on the roots. It will also be much easier to section his hair if it still has some length to it, which means you can keep track of which sections you've already done.

I think I'd really go at his scalp first with the conditioner and the nit comb and try to get the eggs off the roots as much as possible. Then, if you want to cut it shorter, cut some of the length off at that point. If you're not handy with the hairdressing scissors you'll want to leave enough length for him to have a proper tidy up at the hairdresser's once all the nits have gone.

Do the conditioning and combing treatment once every other day for a good week or so until you're certain you've got them all, and keep checking his hair every day for the next few weeks.

Nits hate the smell of tea tree, so get him some nice pongy tea tree shampoo and conditioner to use going forward to discourage the little buggers from coming back.

Growing up in the 1960s, my dad taught at a SEN school, then called ESN. It was a boarding school for boys. After the holidays, as the boys came back, each one had their head inspected and if they had head lice, their head was shaved. I am not saying this was OK, but it worked.

OP if you had a daughter with thick hair no one would be suggesting you buzz cut it, so people are being sexist by assuming all boys should accept a shaved head. Personally if he has beautiful hair that he wants to keep, I’d persevere.

I find that the internet provides answers always. Spend time googling local people and see if you can find someone who will sort it out for you. I see these lice professionals coming through my Facebook. I’m sure you can find someone who will sort it for you and then you can make sure you do maintenance afterwards and preventative hairstyles.

For everyone on here saying ‘buzz it off’. You first.

My son had thick longer hair and picked up nits several times.
The following worked.
Sit him in bath.
Wash and brush hair (normal brush).
Apply tonnes of conditioner.
Normal comb to get tangles out.
Comb with Nitty Gritty from the scalp (you haven't said you have this comb - trust me, go and get it). Add more conditioner if needed.
Rinse.
Get out of bath.

Repeat every other day.

If they have 'come back' within 3 weeks, it's highly unlikely it's a new batch, more that you didn't remove them in the first place.

7 kids, 5 girls, long curly hair, plenty of nits over the years, never once needed to use chemicals.

Methodical, systematic combing once a day, longest i can remember them lasting is a few days.

Keep checking and combing for a week after, as siblings and classmates can reintroduce them

There is nothing wrong with using ‘chemicals’, by the way.

My DSs hair was short but thick. I used to use tea tree oil and a nit comb. Wash the hair every night and go through it every night. Eventually they should reduce and then go.

I think you need to cut his hair. It must be so itchy and miserable for him.