To think they should bring back nit nurses?

[Rachtoteach]

First day back after half term yesterday. A nice, lice free half-term I should add. Doing my little girl's hair for school this morn, she is caked in nits and eggs. I couldn't send her into school - how could I when it would then have just spread and I would have been as bad as the mums I moan about who dont appear to give a toss. I had to take my son in anyway so went into talk to my daughter's teacher. I expressed my upset that it has now come to the point (headlice has been going on and on and on since Sept) that I have felt the need to keep her off school. I know its not the teachers fault. She said unfortunately some parents simply dont treat/check and until whole class is treated at same time, problem will continue. So for WITW I have bought yet another treatment which has to be applied over night and washed off in the morning. I have my daughter at home (she is 5) and I am supposed to be at work. I really think they should bring back nit nurses so all children are checked and treated!!

And what Thepinkpussycat said.

Don't worry they'll still need to breathe, it's just that humans aren't the only species that can hold their breath, albeit by a different mechanism

Just spoke to DM on the phone and asked her about her childhood in a S London suburb and as an evcuee. She is early 80's, I am 60 this year, neither of us ever had nits - I've had them since, off the DC of course, and we were well aware you could catch them from other children. My threadworms as a toddler were the bane of her life

She does recall there being a bit of a problem with fleas though, human fleas I imagine. And in my childhood there was a constant rumour that you could still get fleas in the flea-pit, as the cinema was often known.

It was only when ironing the seams of clothes became a part of life that human body lice became more or less extinct. We can't iron heads though

For the sake of completeness, I must confess that long ago in my promiscious twenties, I did get crab lice

Very specialist, lice. Good demonstration of evolution in action - your basic human louse evolving to fill 3 very specific niches on the human body.

Just imagine having public lice, body lice and head lice (plus fleas - or maybe you couldn't have both at the same time?)

My 2 older children's first primary school once had a problem with scabies( about 10 years ago)...the whole school had to shut and everyone had to pick up the treatment from the school office and use it on the same day... to be used on the WHOLE family!
That was a nightmare! And the gossips in the school playground (i.e. mothers) blamed some traveller children for it. Not pleasant at all, and they had absolutely no proof.

Mites in the skin, I know there was a scabies outbreak at a fairly local school about 10 years ago also.

I read a v interesting book 'Human Guinea Pigs' written by someone who had been a conscientious objector in the 2nd world war, but volunteered his services, not to kill, but to be infected with scabies so it could be studied, and eliminated in the troops.

DD had it now I come to think of it, I remember now us all having to do the treatment and do the bedding etc. Either I'd repressed that memory, or [old gimmer emoticon] :)

Hers was more recent than the school outbreak I mentioned. Since the human guinea pig study concluded that scabies is most often communicated by sharing a bed, I think it must have been in her late adolescence

Yes, in your case, MrsH. You seem to find it difficult to imagine other people not being the same as you! It's not just the Full Marks website- every site you look at will tell you that not everyone itches and that in many cases there is no itching for up to 3 months after the first louse arrives. It is medical fact. Which is why a person can have a significant infestation without noticing.

I have a very dry scalp prone to scabbyness when I am rundown - I itch like a bastard - and I don;t have nits - so I am willing to believe the opposite can also occure

Well i have to agree witht the full marks website when it says the thought of head lice makes you itch, because i cant read this thread wtihtout scratching my head!

Tea Tree oil and shampoos do not work. They make us feel better.

The only thing I am thinking will work is asking the PTA for money to do a 'National Nit Day' and pay for the stuff. So everyone is treated.

Not sure what else will work. We recently did ourselves and the two children but I am pretty sure I saw a nit today in DD's head.

The mention of hairforce and their guarantee to clear lice (without chemicals) sent me to google for more information.

Hairforce use a custom built very powerful hair dryer type contraption to kill both lice and eggs by dehydrating them. The device is called The LiceBuster and was developed by a university professor specialising in evolution (of lice in particular).

In the scientific paper in which he first introduces his licebuster device he did a controlled trial using various different hair dryers.

The hair dryers achieved a similar sort of egg (nit) death rate to the licebuster device. See here for the graph: hairdryer (direct airflow, so no diffuser) killed nearly 100% of eggs. Not as many actual lice as the licebuster, but if you comb for the lice and kill all the eggs with a hair dryer you'll break the cycle in the end...

The paper is very easy to read and gives full details of how the hair was sectioned and for how long each section needed to be 'treated' (blasted with the dryer). The full paper is here but here is a snippet from a relevant section:

Handheld Blow-dryer: Directed Heating

We divided the hair into 20 sections and treated each section for 60 seconds, holding the dryer in a stationary position for 30 seconds on one side of the section and then 30 seconds on the opposite side of the section. To heat all 20 sections in this manner required a total of 30 minutes, including the time necessary to move between sections.

We've never had lice but my eldest is in reception and we've had the dreaded lice letters home so I fear our days are numbered. This thread had me worried - but Dr Clayton's hair dryer research will (hopefully) save me from the seduction of quackery...

seeker it's because they don't all itch that they all have to comb over the paper

Half - that article is great. I was really surprised that the hatch rate was so high(50%) and the numbers of eggs to lice, it's so easy to see how a child could end up with loads.

Reading that the best course of action to take at home would be to comb and then dry the hair using a styling nozzle directly on small sections of hair.