Headlice, WWYD

[Newusernameforthiss]

Twins in reception, two different forms, I've never encountered headlice before so genuinely clueless.

They got them nearly three weeks go. I followed the NHS advice to the letter with a nitty gritty comb as recommended on here. Today is day 17. Me, DH, one twin all clear, the other one had one tiny headlouse, or it could have been a bit of fluff, probably a headlouse tho.

Would you ignore it and consider it done (I mean that means I missed one egg last time and this little twatlord was too small to have laid eggs) or should I now start with hedrin etc omg I am so bored of combing everyone's hair?

YANBU: this is basically done, chill out
YABU: it's hedrin time, the phantom itching will never stop otherwise

I feel your pain, discovered my 7 year old ds has them this weekend through spotting excessive scratching. No idea how long he’s had them as he hasn’t scratched all week although was at his dads some of the week and got 8 actually lice out tonight 😭 he’s still scratching in bed so must be more but in the end I wasn’t getting anything else earlier and he was crying so looks like many repeated treatments.

Vosene shampoo always seemed to help keep the critters at bay here. I'm so glad these days are over for me!

Can someone explain in detail how they do the combing? My daughter has long thick hair and it took me hours to do it. I can't imagine how hard it would be to do it every week.

I didn't spot anything either so I might be doing it wrong or I don't know what I'm looking for!!

Would I spot the lice from a visual check (without using the comb)?

Loads of cheap conditioner on dry hair. Then run the comb through, wipe on toilet roll. Repeat.

my girls were the same.

Three weeks sounds like bliss, my son had a never ending run of nearly 18 months - treated him so many times, combed nightly, cleared him over a holiday - 2 weeks back and they were back again. Drove me nuts, also really sadly has made him go from cool surfer dude hair to short hair. =( He will say its due to the combing.

Defo nit comb weekly with conditioner. Buy good quality tea tree oil and put a few drops in the shampoo bottle, use continuously. Plait hair. Lotion treatments are crap - do not work.

Top tip - use hair straighteners after treatment to kill the eggs.

DSis and I went through school with plaits and neither of us ever had nits. It did help that DM was a nit nurse so she checked us monthly.
DS caught them a couple of times early on but then I started doing the weekly comb through, much easier with boys hair, and never had problems again. School nurse blamed rugby since the boys were usually clear until they started contact rugby and cricket and started sharing scrum caps and helmets. Once they hit puberty it was never a problem. There is a theory that lice don’t like men, maybe more to do with early teenage boys not being over fond of water or (in DS’s case) the overuse of hair product.

Mountains of conditioner + nit comb every day or two to start with, then every few days until the buggers have all gone. Also rub a couple of drops of tea tree or lavender oil into their hair while it’s wet and leave in. Job done.

When my children were in school, we had many years of this, particularly as a family member couldn't care less about her kids' head lice. I spent so long combing with conditioner, using a straightener - all of it. The one thing that seemed to break the cycle was Hedrin. It saved my sanity!

Hedrin Once. Comb it through in minute sections all over (you'll find the buggers) nitty gritty comb is alright but I found it easier to remove eggs with my fingernails. Do not try to wet the hair after the time is up. Completely cover the hair in talc and then use a bottle of dish soap. Once that's all washed out use as much conditioner as you possibly can.
After all that, check hair thoroughly every day or so.
DD has very thick hair, long enough to sit on but this solved the problem for us every time.

My daughter's is a mass of curls. I do a middle parting then section each side into about 4 horizontal slices. Swirl each one up with a bobble. Start at the nape of the neck and work up, section by section, letting each one sit loose when you've finished it. Take extra care in the last section on each side.

OP I haven't tried the treatment route, but if in any doubt I would do a couple more goes through, 3 days or so apart. If you can't face the nitty gritty do it with a normal nit comb and just look for hatchlings, not eggs. The interval is the main thing so you catch them before they lay.

For long curly, hard to dry brush/comb hair (tbh, any long hair really)...

Wet comb with nit comb and conditioner in.

Have a jug or bowl of hot soapy water beside you, a dash of tea tree or lavender oil in it won't hurt either.

Hair soaked in cheap conditioner (a good glug of either oil in that also good, be certain your kid isn't allergic first though. Both are toxic to headlice).

Comb through, section by section, after each stroke through, rinse out the comb in the soapy/oily water, so you can see what you caught and get rid, rather than risk putting them back.

They can't run away, the oil kills, the conditioner suffocates and the comb rinse bath gets them off the head and into something they can't escape from before they die.

You need to do it several times to catch any that hatch after the first go, new eggs are hard to get as they're hard up against the scalp and the eggs are smaller than the adult headlice so may escape the comb.

If you/child will be constantly re-exposed to the source of nits then do it every week.

Use a tea tree and lavender hair spritz (you can make your own, just dilute a few drops in water, shake well before use) on finished hair before they go to school (or in my case, meet up with skanky and ill advised boyfriend).

Once I sussed this I stayed nit free whilst i took a stupidly long time to figure out I should dump said skanky boyfriend!

The itching can take a day or so to calm down - definitely do it again but you might have them all.

My DD has just had her first case at age 12, don’t know how we managed to escape so long.

is the hair meant to be dry for the conditioner comb through? We’ve been doing it wet.

Hedrin once, used twice but a week apart. Comb with conditioner after treatment.

Personally I would probably keep checking weekly to ensure they have gone

Second this. I used Herein, got a few, thought great, caught it early. Itching didn't stop. Used Nitnot a week later and got loads.
Boy twins so hair not long enough to plait, but it's longer than most boys and thick. I've accepted that I'll have to not comb them for life.
And we used the Timoteo that's meant to repel lice.

@NoAprilFool I feel your pain. My DD gave me nits for Mother's day in year 8! I wrongly assumed primary school children mostly got nits but we had loads of cases in year 8 and felt I was on nit duty for the whole year.

I use the nitty gritty comb with hedrin. It loosens the glue on the eggs and helps them come away as well as killing the lice.

Unfortunately I got 8 out last night and was combing until no more and he’s gone to his dads tonight and he’s got 32 out 😭 don’t understand how he’s got such an infestation without us knowing. Although all the ones his dad has got tonight are a lot lot smaller than the ones I got last night so I’m wondering if they’ve just hatched 🤔

Absoloute pee take though. I told school today as he’s an only child at my house (and at his dads has a newborn sibling so no other child at any setting) and they sent an email. All the mums were discussing it at pick up and I overheard one say ‘the letter says to keep combing for at least 2 weeks’ and another replied ‘yeah sod that, I’m not doing that’. So if this is the attitude of other parents, what hope do I bloody have

We have been plagued over the last two years! If in doubt keep combing.

Thanks everyone I did it and it turns out the hedrin reveals loads that weren't appearing with just conditioner, even I had a couple too 🤢 this is rubbish, thanks for your advice

If the government has just sent round hedrin to every family at the start of covid lockdowns we could be a licensed free country. We could search people on the borders and live forever itch free. What a waste of an opportunity.

Use Derbac. Leave it in overnight. Job done.

Its full name is Derbac M. Very expensive and I don't think it's available in boots. You'll have to order it online but it kills anything alive on a head.

No we wouldn't, because there are lice that are resistant to pesticides.

So you may well need a smothering treatment, or proper combing. Every two or three days for a full 21 days (because you need to cover the full breeding cycle)