To shave my head to get rid of lice?

[HairIsOverrated]

Tldr: I've probably got lice (though not 100% sure), I'm struggling to get rid of them and I want to stop wasting so much time and effort on this issue. I just want to cut/ shave my hair but I can't go to a hair dresser to get a proper short hair cut. If i just shave my head I'm worried about what other people think.

Ds brought lice home from school about a month ago. No problem. We used hedrin twice, wet combed a few times and that got rid of them. Unfortunately, he seems to have passed them on to me. I found one louse about a month ago in my hair and a few nits. My hair is slightly longer than ahoulder length but very, very thick. It's a nightmare to wet comb. It takes me over an hour and im pretty sure im missing large chunks of hair.

I have used hedrin shampoo 4 times now and once lyclear. I wet comb every few days but I still have nits and my head itches like crazy. After thst initial louse I never found another one but I am pretty sure that's because of my lousy wet combing technique. Im just not getting to all the roots. Dh thinks it's just dandruff or dry skin or thst my scalp is irritated from the constant treatment but I think I've still got lice. My head itches non stop. I have got a rash on my forehead and my neck and I csj still find nits on the nit comb (yup, it's a nitty gritty).

Anyway lice or not im just fed up of it. Im fed up of the wet combing, having to wash bedding and all my clothes all the time and I don't even properly hug my kids anymore because im so scared of passing the lice on to them. I just want to grt rid of this problem. Ideally i would like to just cut my hairvery short to.make wet combing easier but i can't even go to a hair dresser to get a proper short hair cut because I'm sure no hair dresser wants someone with a potential lice infection. So my only option is to use a long hair trimmer at home.

Dh shaves his head so why csnt I?

I dont care what i look like but I do care about what other people might think. If I shave my head everyone will either think (correctly) that i have got lice or that i am undergoing chemo. And they will ask questions. And I dont want to tell people I've got lice. Especially not on the school run. ds' son's school still has a lice problem so people will provably think it's because of us. But it's not. Ds doesn't have any lice and we have since cut his hair really short so it isnt hard to check.

I've got so many other things going on at the moment I dont want to waste time and energy on this nonsense.

Yabu: just put in the hours to wet comb your hair and get rid of the lice the traditional way.
Or live with them. Or act as if i I don't have lice till I actually see a live one and hope the itching will eventually go away. Having to face people's questions and telling everyone at the kids' school that this is a lousy family isn't worth it.

Yanbu: just cut the damp thing off. Life is too short to spend so much time on doing completely stupid things when there is a quick and effective solution.

I feel your pain… we were trapped in this cycle with DD who had very long very thick hair. She would pick them up at school and pass them to me.

We broke the cycle by treating with the overnight stuff, then every other night combing in the bath or shower with a cheap comb and tonnes of the cheapest conditioner. The conditioner helps get the comb through the thick hair, but also sort of ‘floods’ the lice out. Then another treatment before the next cycle began. I also didn’t have anyone to help, but I promise the conditioner made it easier.

We had to get into good habits with checking regularly too, as if there is a problem at the school you will keep catching them.

Shaving your hair does seem extreme… unless you want that style anyway. In which case go for it, but accept it could be long term as they’re likely to disappear from the school.

In terms of bedding/towels etc, it is a pain but we just stuck with using and washing the same towel and pillowcase while treating.

Good luck.

None of these Hedrins and Lyclears have insecticide as lice are often immune to them. They use polymer to fatally dehydrate the lice or something. I have Derbac (ie insecticide) sitting in the cupboard but I haven’t used it and it might be largely useless anyway. Ammonium in hairdye also does something still they say.

They can live for up to 48h off your head.

You say you can see the nits. Have you taken an egg or nit and put it between your 2 thumbs nails to see if it cracks? If it doesn't then it's highly unlikely you have nits.
I didn't read you other thread but going on what you and others have said it is highly unlike at this stage you have them if you haven't found a live one in your hair.

What age are you? I only ask as itchy scalp is can be part of perimenopause and it can be extreme.It feels like your head is crawling. I had myself convinced in the beginning I had nits but I didn't.

I am not totally convinced you have them either.

You say you have nits but no lice. I thought nits were lice and eggs.

So you are finding eggs? Thats a bit less identifiable than a live lice.

Have you tried anti scratch shampoo? I have itchy scalp - and honestly sometimes i convince myself i have nits. But I dont. Because I havent treated in months and if i did my whole head would be teeming.

Try the milk shampoo from Moogoo.

I was convinced I had nits through a lot of my adolescence and going into my 20s, I still get an itchy head now and second guess whether I have them. That crawling scalp itching is a horrible feeling. I would comb and find nothing. However if I was in your position and genuinely thought I had them and had hair which made it impossible to deal with, I would probably go for a drastic cut.

I cut my hair off once, I cut it all roughly about an inch or two from my scalp and then bleached it. Surprisingly it looked really good. I kept up a short pixie cut for a couple of years but the hairdressers rarely got it looking as good as my initial DIY job. If you were shaving it all off you’d need to cut it really short first anyway.

You can wear a hat / scarf if it looks terrible, and go to the hairdressers once it’s grown out a bit and you’re assured you don’t have lice. You said you’ve always wanted to give short hair a go, this is a good excuse to finally do so.

Op the only way I cleared my head was to section and wet combing every night for 3 weeks. It took nearly 2 hours each night but only way I cleared them

I also smothered hair in oil every night. Wrapped in shower cap and put bonnet on as it smothers them

I found that the treatments that say you only need to leave them on for a short time weren't very effective. I was combing out live live.
I found the Boots treatment to be the best and the key thing was treating everyone on the same night.

My DD got headlice twice within three weeks and she has waist long hair. It was awful. I tried a few different head lice treatments and I found this one to be the best one. Echoing a pp we go to bed with it in our hair

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07KWPKKWZ?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_image

The products only work if you repeat them weekly for about four weeks & comb like mad, they only really work effectively on adult lice. Some will say they "kill eggs". None are proven to kill all the eggs and any eggs left = reinfection.

I'd have a go at cutting it yourself first with the help of DH. I did my own hair once and it actually turned out okay.

just use the olive oil method, leave the olive oil in the hair and when you wash it out, dry with hair dryer and then use straighteners to. help kill the eggs

I did this with my dd who had long thick hair and it was the only method that worked, it takes at least 21 days of doing this every 3 days

but it works

I have previously cut my hair short myself with kitchen scissors then gone to a hairdresser to fix the styling. Just wore a hat until I booked the appointment. This was due to migraines and having long thick hair weighted on my head and then one day it was so bad I just grabbed the pony tail and chopped it.
Just tie it in a pony tail and chop it, then your hair will be shorter and easier to get rid of the ljce. Then go to the hairdressers once they are gone.

I was disappointed that COVID lockdowns didn't rid us of nits forever.

Years ago after a ridiculous amount of reinfection we discussed getting the vet into school to treat every single child with the best flea treatment.
I think only the summer holidays saved us from this highly unethical and professionally damaging course of action.

It took me 5 hours to do DD’s long curly hair and 2 hours to do Ds’d short hair.

l can’t see how you can do it so quickly,

Op your Dh needs to do yours.

Olive oil or coconut oil massaged into you scalp and hair and wrap your head overnight, job done. Easy fix and it's good for your hair. If you have a nit comb, come your hair before washing the oil out. To shampoo, don't add water initially, just shampoo, then slowly add water.

Book yourself in to a place that specialises in getting rid of them.

I used to soak my head in Dettol, killed them outright

DH and I got nits about 5 years ago, caught them from DSS whose hair was crawling with them 🤮 🤮 DH ended up shaving his head and then he spent hours combing my hair as I didn’t want to cut it. It worked though, just stick with it.

I would ask your hairdresser if it was something they were prepared to help you with, they might see you after hours to isolate you.

Also, when DD had it last, we used Hedrin Treat & Go that you leave in for 8 hours, and washed it out in the morning. It took 2 applications a week apart, but it worked.

Ongoing, you can use preventitive shampoos, and also comb regularly using lots of conditioner.

I have been where you are. I have long thick, wavy hair and it took me four months of continuous treatment, sheet washing and itchy rashes to get rid of the damn things but they did go eventually. Shaving or cutting your hair will not solve the problem as the nits and lice glue themselves to the root shaft of your hair.

Keep treating your hair and ask someone to help you comb them out. DIY is super difficult! Then, if you feel the need, get a hair cut and soothing conditioning treatment.

You can also buy preventative sprays for when you've got rid and do not want them coming back to the party! Good luck.

I'm in my forties. It could be period but the timing would be uncanny as the itching started and then when I checked my hair i found a louse and then found lice in ds hair. So there were definitely lice in the house at that time.

I tried to pop a nit between my thumb nails but it didn't really seem to pop, crack or break or do anything. They are really small though so I dont think it would be easy to pop them. They don't look like dandruff. They are white or slightly yellowish oval or round quite well shaped little things. They look form rather than flaky. I had uploaded a photo on my other thread but the quality was too bad to see much.

I think the reason why I cant find any live lice (or dead ones) after that first initial one.is because im not nit combing my hair properly so I'm just missing them. I also don't think I have a lot of lice in hair because I've done 4 treatments now but maybe there are just a few. Enough to lay eggs.

I've read that a rash below your hairline on the neck is common with lice. Apart from rhe itching it feels as if oil is running down my scalp, which i imagine are the lice running around.

I thought nits is another word for lice eggs.

So I can find eggs but no live lice in my hair.

A Nitry Gritty comb and lots of conditioner. That always worked for us. But yeah it's horrid. I feel for you.

https://www.boots.com/nitty-gritty-nitfree-comb-10061485?traffic=paid.shopping&gclsrc=aw.ds&gadsource=1&gaddcampaignid=19965631125&gbraid=0AAAAA-AdmwSssPZmbK3rXFd3nEFKCh6G&gclid=CjwKCAiAt8bIBhBpEiwAzH1w6Wf6O-IkbKbrfYKOdC8hRN42eeqZ-9lViIrN835B2v34GEFSTTvmRoCNFsQAvDBwE&queueittoken=eebootsoutage2025uk~qddc177ed-aba5-415b-aead-eddbcb4e2d5a~tss1762786441~cetrue~rttsafetynet~h_7a7ef6294bdea271ce5f6d8d606d15c882c61978fab959a830478db7221c819b