I vacuumed my hair trying to get rid of lice

[Zooeyzo]

Fedup with scratching and the treatments haven't worked so while I was hoovering the house I got so annoyed I held it to my head it felt really good 😂
Everyone else thinks it's very weird.

Awwww @SerenityNowInsanityLater, that’s adoreable! I wish my cats would let me hoover them 😂

Turkish lemon cologne. You can buy Duru in a spray bottle or buy it in a litre size or more and secant into a spray bottle.

Works and makes your hair smell lively and the smell deters them from coming back.

Not helpful but it anyone else scratching their head now! We had them last summer and I’m traumatised from it!

Yep me! I'm still traumatised from the mice infestation we had in our loft and kitchen last autumn, took months to clear, now endless headlice! I'm cursed with pestilence.

I had a really bad case of them years ago. I didn't know any kids at all, so where they came from was a mystery.

I dyed my hair, and that seemed to do the job.

Saying that, I used to love spending hours combing them out and squishing them.

I don't think any of the OTC treatments work if you only apply them for the short period of time on the instructions. Ive found if you leave them on overnight they sometimes do the job (or at least get you 90% of the way there).
We had a nightmare when our DDs all with very thick long hair (ie over an hour to comb each properly) kept passing it around. One of them had a child's microscope and it was incredible how often little bits of skin or dirt, viewed under the microscope, turned out to be tiny lice (and then they would attack each other on the slide!). But it at least meant we knew when the infestation was truly over, which took a lot longer and a lot more combing than we had hoped.

OK I'm inspired to put on the hedrin 8h stuff tonight.

Dd has been full-marksed and combed with the Nitty Gritty 2 days ago, I can't see a single speck in her hair and it looks gorgeous and clean and swishy.

@Okayornot has terrified me that what I think is dandruff in my own hair is actually microscopic lice and I've been reinfecting my poor dd aaargh.

Dh thinks I'm paranoid in the style of Lady Macbeth as outlined above.

But he'll be sleeping next to a Hedrin-turbaned wife tonight. Wish me luck

... just applied the 8h Hedrin.

When I was doing the pre-application combing, I showed my dh the comb (and must have looked a bit manic with the whites of my eyes showing all round) see! See!

Dh - they just look like little specs of skin. Have you seen a recognisable louse in your own hair yet?

Me - ah but a mumsnetter was just saying she's seen bits of skin that are actually lice under the microscope. Just now, honestly, it's a current thread. Baby nymph lice, honestly

Dh looked concerned. About me, not the lice. I'm losing my mind.

But I've got the hedrin turban on so it's all good

op have you tried mayo and vinegar itl make your head smell like a burger but I swear it works tried on my lot after a tip from a friend, after using all the treatments and still getting them back again. have been lice free (touch wood) for years now !

Hearing every 7 deserves for a few weeks!

My niece is now in her 30’s. She’s mixed race and my sister was having a nightmare trying to get rid of them. The chemist told her to try vodka as they said they were finding that the the lice had become resistant to all the OTC treatments.

I used to sit DD in the sunlight and pick out the eggs/lice with a nitty gritty comb, stick them on a piece of sellotape. Super satisfying.

The sun illuminated the eggs on her hair.

Never used any treatments, I don't think they work reliably. Only ever wet combed with conditioner to remove nits, it's annoying and time consuming but actually works. Just make sure you get your timings right, I missed one of DD'S seasons and we where almost back to square one.

The only thing that really does work is combing round the clock! (I did like the vodka idea though).
You eventually get all the adult lice out (who layed the eggs), then the teenage lice which can't lay eggs yet, to the hatching baby lice so basically working the generations out your head!

Why do they even still exist in this day and age!!??

And now my head is itching like mad!

Does hairspray work?

I get a mug of just boiled water and dip the comb in it - the heat kills the lice on the comb - oddly satisfying.

I never had any luck with chemical treatments, because it's not so much not killing the lice on the kids that's the issue. It's that they just keep re infecting themselves at school. Hence, ongoing combing with conditioner.

I am both freaked out by that, @Okayornot, and also wish I had a microscope for the inevitable nit epidemic that will hit when the Easter holidays end 😂

Nitty gritty comb and conditioner. Constantly, daily - that's all that is going to work. Chemical treatments are a fallacy, spend lots of money to think the lice and the eggs are dead, only to find the eggs were not dead after all!

Comb comb, comb.

There's always going to be one parent that doesn't / can't be bothered...

Wankers.

Going through this now. One dc has super long thick hair which makes combing a nightmare. I was doing it every other day but I guess I now have to do it daily. I am still itching but not finding anything on the comb. Will try vodka and then derbac!

You need the overnight treatment that smothers them, not the two hour one as they become resistant to that. And a nitty gritty comb every day for weeks. Leave in conditioner.

I was in a panic last night reading this thread but I've woken up calmer (to feed the baby) and now I wonder if maybe the pp who kept seeing lice under the microscope may have been seeing skin mites (which are normal and most adult humans have them).

I think they're called face mites actually, what I'm thinking of. Tiny tiny bugs that eat dead skin - smaller than headlice, but harmless

Plaster thick conditioner on your head before bed and then comb out your hair upside down over a white towel in the morning.

Wash out your hair and then use straighteners to fry the last remaining eggs. Repeat this routine for next few weeks & lightly spray your hair with tea tree oil, they can't stand it.

We bought an electric comb. It electrocuted the nits.

Did you use neat tea tree oil? You need to dilute it in a carrier oil or it will damage skin..