To think if your kid has head lice, sort it out!

[Sigyn]

Ok I am so fed up with this.

My kids have several friends whose parents basically will not treat head lice.

1. They do not want "harsh chemicals" on their kid's head.
2. They cannot be arsed do not have the time to spend hours each night for a week or so fine combing each kid's hair.
3. They have near religious beliefs in the power of one or all of the following: tea tree oil, coconut oil and/or neem.

I am deeply about neem btw. Apparently, it can kill the eggs. So you don't want to put "harsh chemicals" on your kid's head (the active ingredient in Full Marks, for example, is a drying agent, a bit like those those little silica packets)-but you will put something on their head so toxic and pervasive that it can get through the shell of an egg? (but, yk, your business...).

Lice are not a mystical mysterious thing. This is how you kill them. Either use a OTC formula or similar to kill the eggs, and comb through, repeatedly, until they are gone (resistance, you might have missed a bit esp with long hair, etc) OR do the same, using conditioner, mayo, coconut oil, whatever floats your boat and a Nitty Gritty (ideally) until they are gone. Then do it all again a week later as the eggs start to hatch. Then tie up your kids hair into pigtails.

It takes hard, bloody work and I am SO sick of it.

This is the prevalent culture in the circles we mix in. Basically, medical intervention=bad. Unpronounceable names on medicine= bad. Untested, potentially dangerous and/or ineffective "medicines" = great, possibly transcendent.

Oh and fwiw, I think even with a chemical spray you need to comb through. I don't think those who use sprays get off the hook.

There's another big issue with mechanical louse removal.

Its really, really hard, IMO, to do it on yourself well. Its so important to be methodical with it, and its just easy to miss a bit.

But if your kids have lice, odds are huge that you all have them,so you need to do yourself somehow.

A lot of people don't itch with lice, apparently. For those of us who react badly (I do) that's hard to believe, but apparently its true. So not itching doesn't mean too much here.

Dads need to do it too don't get me started on hippy dads wafting their long unbrushed hair reeking of patchouli not to mention offensive sexist ideas about all over the place

Hedrin ad written by Sigyn . "Is your kid's head itching? Why, that's because you are a fuckwit of an irresponsible neglectful parent. You actually deserve to pay for Hedrin for EVERY kid in your child's class, and then go round to their houses and shampoo it out over days. But even sorting your own kid out would be a start.".

Is your kid's head itching?
Other parents will be bitching
Don't be a silly Neem-er
Or a lazy coconut dreamer
Stick your tee tree up your ass
Get some Hedrin on and fast

Sigyn it is not obvious on their pages, I agree. It definitely is in the leaflet that comes with the combs- or here (see below), they go for 2 x a week for two weeks since the presence of live lice (say day 1 and day 4 but it doesn't matter exactly). If you find live lice on session 2,3 and 4, you do three sessions after that- because they may have got a fresh infestation in that time period.

www.chc.org/homedir/healthprofessionals.cfm

What I like about their approach is that it is cheap, only the price of conditioner and you can ask the doctor to prescribe it- so if you get free prescriptions you get it free (presumably all children get them). Or just buy it for £8 or whatever.

It also says under their 'mistaken advice' section why you should wet comb, which I did kind of remember- which is that the lice are kept still by the water and the conditioner, they go immobile. If you dry comb, the little blighters run away- I have seen them do this!

Having said that, people have to do what works for them. What is irritating is that most people on this thread do treat them, but of course these are not the few we are talking about.

The research evaluations of this method are here:

www.chc.org/homedir/review-studies.cfm

Thanks for the Hedrin tip!

No, I don't usually shampoo before getting it wet.

Well, not deliberately but what usually happens is I liberally douse DD with it, wait half an hour (or whatever the time is), comb, she then gets in the bath and soaks herself/the bathroom and then I wash her hair

You are SO not unreasonable. In years gone by- mine are now teens- I would spend hours every other night at least nitty gritty combing three kids after a hard day at work because of other parents laziness.

Yes as one poster said, it's the same with other things. We had recurrent threadworm. DD just kept on getting it. We would treat the poor girl, wash everything, all the measures. Then she would just get it again at school.

Went into the school and complained and it seems to have stopped now. But it went on for weeks. FGS treat your children people!

Fortunately (or not) both of mine have awful dermatitis on their scalps which seems to stop them getting headlice.

Cheery

Great ode

Now all buy Nitty Gritties by the Load!

napoleon I can't find research backup for the frequency, I've had a quick look through the papers. I always think with these things it might be a bit like the 5 a day. Really you should eat 52 or whatever it is, but 5 seems manageable. So they say 5 because 5 is better than nothing. Ditto here, saying 3 or 5 or whatever and explaining why is likely to mean people actually do it.

I still say, if you want to be sure, you need to do it every day. Common sense plus the science geek in me. Part people not being as effective as they think, and part the fact that there is likely to be some small variation in when lice etc hatch, when they become mature.

Don't get me wrong though, I think the BugBuster stuff looks great. I can imagine that my concerns about frequency might not apply with the Bugbuster equipment as it looks thorough-perhaps I'm more worried that someone using a more rubbish comb might need to up the frequency (or buy a NittyGritty for the differential in conditioner cost)

Repeating my upthread question though, those who use mechanical removal-how do you do it to yourself, esp if you have long hair? I strongly suspect its nearly impossible to do effectively to yourself. Its one reason we mainly use Harsh Chemicals.

differential? difference, sorry.

cheery

brilliant

I always think on these threads that people keep saying "I comb my DCs hair really well and treat them but every week they are re-infested by kids at school."

Don't you think it's y'know, faintly possible that you actually aren't combing/treating your DCs hair well enough and the "re-infestation from school" is actually the eggs you failed to comb out of your DCs hair hatching and a new batch of lice appearing. And that the parent not treating the headlice properly could be you?

I know a mum who claims her DC got lice from a chair in the dentist waiting room. They had sat there for half an hour, apparently, and when they had got home the DC was crawling with nits! You'd have thought someone would have noticed a battalion of nits sitting on a plastic chair wouldn't you? There was clearly NO WAY that mother was going to admit that a clutch of eggs she hadn't dealt with had just hatched.

Repeating my upthread question though, those who use mechanical removal-how do you do it to yourself, esp if you have long hair?

I comb and condition every day in the shower if I think or know I have caught them.

You can't section your own hair quite so specifically but you can clip layers up and you can feel if the comb's against your scalp. The fact that I do it daily seems to be enough to make sure I get them all in the end because I've treated them successfully on myself several times this way.

I have every sympathy with those dealing with long thick hair. Mine is very thick and DD1's is waist length and so thick that hairdressers call each other over to see it. We've still managed to treat her successfully several times using just a Nitty Gritty and conditioner. In fact she did it herself last time being 15 and not wanting me to get involved.

It just takes perseverance and a will to beat the little blighters.

Oh I do agree BalloonSlayer.

My issue is primarily with people who

a. use frankly stupid and inadequate methods of getting rid of nits.
b. can't even be arsed to use frankly stupid and inadequate methods of getting rid of nits, and use their mystical beliefs as a get-out-card.

(I have had someone once detail her inner turmoil at getting rid of lice in her hair - her own hair, to be fair, not her child- because they were living beings too. I stood well away from her during this conversation)

Paranoid now. I have ds 8 who has never had them despite letters sent home from school saying they we're going around school. Every time we get a letter I check his hair and have combs ready just in case.

Also have dd2 at nursery 2 days per week but she still has hardly any hair,

Am I missing them or would I definitely know???

I have a Nitty Gritty comb but I never see any life when I wet comb my hair? Why??? Am I doing it wrong? I put loads of conditioner in and I know there are lice in my hair.

YADNBU! I went through the same witm both DD 1 and 2, god it used to piss me off! I do think though the inventors of the "Nitty Gritty" should be nighted...

BTW in my home country children are not allowed to attend school with headlice and will be sent home if any are seen. They also need a certificate from the GP to confirm that they are lice-free following treatment before they are allowed to attend again! Harsh but effective

Am I missing them or would I definitely know???

I depends on the severity of the infestation.

In the early days when there are only a few dozen lice you need to sweep through from the scalp to the ends with conditioner and a decent nit comb to find them. You generally cannot see them just by looking through their hair and they run from the movement.

However I have had a childminded child on whom I could see them. One sweep of the nit comb on dry hair brought out dozens. He must have had hundreds or even thousands on there and they must have been there for weeks.

Artisan, how do you check?

I personally check with a NittyGritty / good lice comb (not a plastic job) and conditioner/coconut oil. I don't wet comb-my kids hair is really hard to brush wet- but that might be enough. With one of my kids in particular, lice would never show up, never, on a check through, and they would not show up on wet combing.

Not all kids itch, so you can't just go on that.

I also personally find that it depends on the conditioner.

And i leave it on for bit, five minutes or so.

The best stuff I know is that cheapo alberto balsam stuff

Aussie stuff is good too, or coconut oil.

Don't they send kids home from school if they have headlice? I remember being banned from school for three days (plus the weekend) until my mother had sorted it out.

ThisFence you need to really scrape the comb over your scalp when combing, the lice sit on the scalp so unless you drag it across the scalp you won't get any of them out. After each stroke with the comb I usually wipe the comb over a tissue to remove them ftom the comb straight away. Once you have the technique figured out it is amazingly effective, even on very fine hair where other combs usually fail!

I use electrical zappers, they work a treat and it's very satisfying hearing each nit bite the dust.