To feel utterly defeated by nits ?

[Biggadyboo]

Have two kids with learning disabilities. They have both had nits since January. Which means I have too.

Treated them first with Hedrin, three times every seven days, wet combing mid week.

still there

Then tried nitnot , no difference.

was advised by a GP friend to try Lyclear as different active ingredient. Have done that three times now. No change.

the kids both utterly hate having their hair combed. Their learning disabilities and sensory issues make it a stressful battle.

But nevertheless I’ve been fucking combing it with conditioner as much as I can the last two weeks . Almost every night. It’s utterly hell, screaming, crying, horrible. But I’ve been doing it

and today there are still literally hundreds of the bastards. I literally can’t comb them all out. There’s just too many

i don’t know what to do😭

Me and every reputable health organisation. Well done for your groundbreaking research.

You have to do the whole head in one go or the sections you've done just get immediately overrun again.

Try the hoover thing if you think they will sit through it.

Otherwise, you will have to try and do it every other day. If they have the understanding, I would tell them that they sit through it without struggle or they have their hair cut properly short. Like buzz cut short.

Because those are the only real options. Short of shaving their heads, there is no other way of getting rid of them but chemicals and combing with a proper nit comb in tiny sections or having them vacuumed out.

We've had them once and never again. One child is autistic, the itching drove him crazy and he put up a protest. Hated the treatnent and wouldn't let me put it on, hated the combing and fought it off, I did have to go full on drill sergeant in the end and told him it was comb or a razor, take his pick.

I gave him a fish tank full of kinetic sand and he reluctantly tolerated it. Now he is paranoid and won't put his head near anyone in case he gets them again.

We witnessed it with our own eyes.

In our case the louse lived for two weeks. I doubt we just managed to kidnap the longest living louse in world history. These critters evolve fast - hence being immune to most pesticides now. I've seen them crawling along the bathtub after we nitty grittied a friends child in there the day before. These things are more resilient than the nit cream companies make out. They don't want to eradicate them after all - otherwise they would go out of business.

Fleas are similar. I kept 5 cat fleas in a jar with kitchen roll soaked in Indorex last summer. They were sitting on it for 3 days and still not dead. So I didn't bother using it in my house.
Probably more toxic to us than it is to the fleas.

Also, I'm not sure a 'reputable health organisation' exists anymore, and I don't know you from Adam. But I know what I have witnessed.

I kept 5 5 fleas in a jar with kitchen roll soaked in Indorex last summer

You need a hobby 😁

Try it - it's fun 😄

I've said it before and will say it again NEEM OIL! Used by the US military. It destroys nits, lice, eggs, reproductive system. I was at my wits end and getting snarky letters off my ex as if the nits were my fault! I tried everything including Spanish nit lotion I got on holiday. Not only did Neem nuke 'em, they never came back. The hair will stink of it slightly for some time but it keeps the little buggers away. My local Indian supermarket sells it.

Thanks for this, I’m going to try it. Any tips on how long to leave it in for?

I used it on a weekend to allow plenty of time to blitz the nits and to allow for washing out. It's very gloopy and viscous & DD wore a shower cap with it in her hair over night and most of the next day. It looks like a weird pesto. I probably used to much but coat the hair and scalp well. I spent ages washing it out in cheap shampoo then combed it through with conditioner. The smell is horrible, like burnt tyres.

Yes - I found leaving it to soak, then adding a bit more, before combing increased the number I got out.

The cheap thick hair gel you use for dance shows is very good when you put their hair in plaits or buns etc. I managed to smother a missed one with this. 💪Found it when I was combing it out in the evening.

Consistency is key. What I did was always wear a shower cap myself while treating their hair to prevent any nits getting getting into my own hair. I combed loads of conditioner through their hair using a metal nit comb - every strand from root to end and then put shower caps on them for the nits to hopefully overheat and/ or drown for 30 minutes. Then I'd comb anything I could out with the nit comb and wash their hair thoroughly in the shower. I put a mild vinegar rinse on too to try to dislodge eggs. A capful of white vinegar in abot a litre of water. My children had a lot of hair too. I did this daily for about 10 days and they were nit-free.

I know you say you can't do this every day but a halfhearted approach just prolongs the agony and you still have hundreds of nits. Yes, my children hated it but they were really keen to get rid of the nits. I used a Robi comb and it helped a bit but I found it didn't get the small nits as it seemed to glide through my children's very fine hair. I was never convinced tea tree oil was effective or preventative in any way and my children couldn't stand the stench of it either.

Treat every comb and brush with disinfectant and hot wash bedding and put in a dryer if possible. Inspect all pillows, hats and sofas. Vacuum thoroughly. I did put some soft toys and hats in the freezer for a few days - thoroughly wrapped. I think I did pillows in the freezer too. I understand straightening irons can be somewhat effective on long hair. I think you might have to sacrifice some length on your daughter's hair though - a bob rather than a buzz cut- because what's the point of having long hair if it's crawling with nits.

I did buzzcut one of my boys. We bought a set of hair clippers and cut it really short. I have got to say it was a lot easier and quicker to get all the nits out and while it looked fairly awful it soon grew out.

I had a similar battle which I ended with using listerine mouthwash on the kids hair, the alcohol and menthol or whatever it is kills them. You saturate their hair in it and put a shower cap on. Half an hour later all the nits are dead and you wash it out. If they have blonde hair don’t use a blue one though.

you can google it, some websites say not to use but I was desperate and it worked.

So now which do I try?

nitwits
vamousse
invernectim
listerine
cocunut oil
vinegar

Or just keep combing as much as I can until the summer holidays and then not go on holiday, instead use the money for the nit hoover people?

That’s the problem isn’t it, you’ve been given about 50 different solutions here with everyone saying ‘the only thing that works is…’ and then naming something completely different to the poster before.
For us it was the Lyclear shampoo on days 1, 4 and 7 that finally worked, with daily combing in between. That might not be an option for you though (and I do hugely sympathise, as our youngest has autism and there’s no way he’d sit and let us comb his hair every evening for the length of time required, so I’m just so relieved he didn’t catch it from his siblings).

I think consistency and attention to detail is the key, whichever technique you decide upon.

Disagree. Tackling it from all angles gets the job done. These lice are tough and it’s takes extreme measures to get rid of them. Many parents just slap on the lotion once or twice (depending if they can be bothered plus the cost of it all) and that’s it. Hence the constant round of nuts at school.

consistency and attention to detail are two things I am utterly rubbish at

You have to understand OP, the "chemicals" in any of hedrin etc are simply a very concentrated form of conditioner that suffocates the lice. nothing is proven at present to reliably kill the eggs. If they have a heavy infestation in long hair, it has to be combed in layers very thoroughly to be effective - if you are doing 10 or 15 mins and thinking its enough, sadly it isnt.

If its very bad, your other bet is to pay for the hoover treatment thing which ive heard is effective, or talk to your GP and ask about prescription only options like ivermectin. You could also look for permithrin & malathion based products which are different to hedrin etc,however be aware that in the UK a high proportion of headlice have developed resistance to these.

Then you’re f***ed with this then. Sorry.

Can you buy in outside help? It’s really not fair on anyone in your family or wider circle of friends to be infested with hair lice.

It was a couple of years ago and I think it was £150 per head. I’ve got just the one child and they checked DH for free so we paid £300 in all. 😬

I wonder why they haven't been excluded by the school. When I was in Spain, the child with head lice was excluded for 3 days and then checked for nits by the staff. If they're excluded the parents will soon sort it.

Can you not just shave the kids heads?

Or just cut their hair very short. In Spain when I lived there, the boys had almost shaved hair when they went back to school. The mothers put white vinegar on heads which apparently deters the lice and it seems to work and schools excluded children for 3 days who were infested. Frankly, if a school is admitting children with a disease or infection, the school is culpable. But then, Spanish schools will automatically exclude unvaccinated children. They are not allowed to attend.

They're not allowed. They can't even send a child home part way through the day to be treated. When I was teaching we all saw a louse fall out of a child's head and when I looked closer she was crawling with them. A TA took her to the office and asked the Head to please send her home and he said it wasn't allowed.

The only thing that worked for us was combing with mountains of conditioner and then NitNot three time over the course of a week. But NOT with the NitNot comb, one of the horrible little metal ones.

Good luck OP - I feel for you

Too many kids with shit parents were missing loads of education because their parents didn’t care if they were at school or not and couldn’t be bothered to treat them.