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.

Only 2 things ever worked for me (I also had long thick curly hair), when my son was young 20+ years ago I couldn't get rid of head lice so I dyed my hair, 2 weeks on the bounce, on the first go loads of dead lice fell out of my hair as I was rinsing the dye out, was quite satisfying really. Then I straightened my hair daily for a few weeks to make sure all the eggs were killed.

5 years ago, and treatments had moved on, my daughter caught lice at secondary school so we used NitNot, incredible stuff, you can get it on Amazon.

My head is itching now!

My friend had this and was convinced she had nits. After using everything invented to kill them she went to the gp who checked her head thoroughly and said she had candida probably caused by so many harsh nit treatments.she had to use anti fungal shampoo and it settled down really quickly.

Why can’t you phone a hairdresser and explain your situation and that you are happy to go after hours/pay extra for them to give you a nice short cut and also de nit you at the same time? Or a mobile hairdresser who can come to your home?!

If your serious buy a wig in a short style you like in preparation for the shaveYou get some lovely wigs.

Other option is to dye or bleach, that tends to kill them too

I haven’t read all the posts, sorry if this is repeated, but I had this problem years ago, literally weeks of treating and combing my very long and thick hair. I was ready to shave it all off, then had a course of antibiotics for a uti, and they went. I later found out that was because the antibiotics in your blood kills them. Not sure if this is useful info??

Haven't read the full thread so this may have been suggested.
Do a sponsored head shave for Children in Need - at home obviously.
No embarrassing questions & it'll soon grow so then you can pop to the hairdressers for a neat pixie cut for Christmas.

DH may be right. After all the treatment you may well have dry scalp and just thinking lice makes us itch.
Go to pharmacy and explain. Ask if they'll check in private.
Put your mind at ease.
Horrible. Feel for you.

Why won’t your husband help you to wet comb your hair?

If you do shave you could always get a wig

My daughter has had them a few times and I’ve luckily never caught them. Wet combing was so hard with her because her hair is long and very very thick. I tried my best and just made sure i applied the treatment very thoroughly and followed instructions to the letter (they usually require reapplication a few days later to catch any ones that were unhatched the first time). Fingers crossed we have been clear for several months now.
It you wanted to get a short cut you probably still could get it done by a hairdresser as long as you explain the situation and they take precautions to prevent catching them or infecting anyone else. I bet they have to cut infested children’s hair all the time.
if you really want to shave it and don’t care how it looks then go ahead though! It did cross my mind on more than a few occasions just to shave dds off!

I'd just shave it off OP. Brazen it out and tell people you wanted a drastic change because you were fed up of managing it (which is kind of true). I know someone who genuinely did that, no nits involved afaik, she looks fantastic. It's the season for hats outside anyway and you won't need to worry about hat hair! Then let it grow a little, and get a hairdresser to do you a short easily manageable style. Sounds like it would make your life easier anyway.

I gave myself a buzz cut start of Covid. 5.5 years on I still have it. Best thing I ever did tbh. Sometimes people ask me if it’s due to illness but I just say it’s because I always hated my hair which is true.

Can’t your DH comb it for you? 😂

A hairdresser isn't going to want to treat you, as all the equipment will need to be dealt with, brushes, combs, gowns, towels, sinks, etc its juts not worth the possible cross contamination in the next few days as it could ruin a business

I’ve said this on here before but straighteners don’t work, not close enough to the roots.
Most treatments are just silicone to smother, they have no pesticide or medicated ingredients, so you may as well buy cheap hair serum.
The only thing that worked for us was neem oil, from Amazon, diluted in a spray bottle with water and anise oil. Sleep in it as a treatment, comb, repeat every few days if needed. Then mist it over the kids before school to deter.
Apparently neem is toxic to lice and kills the eggs.
The only over counter treatment that came close was Nitrid.

I'm an ex teacher so feel your pain, I found washing my hair and putting cheap vinegar on, keeping it on as long as you can then wash it out, it dissolves the eggs and kills the nits, I used tea tree shampoo as the nits hate it and every 6 weeks I coloured my hair, my boys had the vinegar treatment once a week and used tea tree shampoo and after I did this they never got them again ( I didn't colour the boys hair!)

I had a similar issue to you. I poured a whole bottle of tea tree oil in my shampoo. Put it in my head for an hour before washing out. Did this every day for a week and they were gone!

It doesn't get rid of lice

If by an outside chance you're within a 25 mile radius of Cambridge, you can be treated by a medical entomology team at Addenbrookes. They're desperate to get their hands on some head lice and advertising on the radio!

Having had to shave my head during chemo and then regrow my hair, there is no way I would ever choose to go through this again. Just do a nit treatment/use the comb, much less fuss.

I had a similar experience after catching lice from my DD and my hair is very long and thick. I eventually gave up and the itching stopped after a few weeks so it must have just been irritated from the repeated treatments. However, I was very thorough with combing with conditioner in and lost quite a lot of hair in the process!

Try bleaching your hair instead, it got rid of mine years ago. We shaved my DS hair once to get rid of them an he still caught them.

I almost did this to one of my daughters out of desperation. One of her classmates was constantly reinfecting her and we’d spent a small fortune on treatments. I simply was running out of money and patience. Hairdresser wouldn’t let her come in with them to get a short cut.

In the end I treated with two different lice products that had different chemical bases at the beginning of a school holiday (over a two week or so period) and finally cracked it that way. Plus class mate moved schools during the holiday. I think other parents were also struggling by that point too.

God no, don’t cut your hair for nits. They’ll go if the treatment is used properly.

All these expensive nit lotions are shit. I use tea tree products. Smother hair with tea tree conditioner, comb through with a nitty gritty comb (not the cheap plastic nit combs). Repeat every other evening and they should go. Also tea tree nit repellent spray from home bargains. That's all I've used since my oldest 2 had nits years ago. The only time theyve ever had them, my youngest has never had them.