Head lice

[Fish]

Go to www.nits.net/bugbusting for some vital tips on breaking the louse life cycle amongst the whole family. It's put out by a charity - Community Hygiene Concern - who do an excellent Bug-Busting comb kit for under a fiver with stickers for the kids and masses of advice for people with all kinds of different hair types - address CHC (BBG), 160 Inderwick Rd N8 9JT, tel 020 8341 7167.

For what it's worth, when my girls (now 17 and 20) were at primary school their hair was washed regularly - 3-4 times a week - with a lot of conditioner, which was combed through with an ordinary comb with small close teeth, and they never got nits (or tangles!)

The school they went to had nit nurse inspections regularly until last term. Gone forever now, apprently. The reasoning escapes me.

At my daughters school, teachers aren't allowed to check the kids' hair even if you ask them to ie if you don't know what your looking for. And apparently then nit nurse doesn't exist any more.......I wonder could money be an issue here?!

well i went into school this morning and told the teacher and they did not bat an eyelid they said thanks for telling them and they would send a letter home with the kids in his class and that was that i was a bit suprised they were not intrested finding out where it came from because i am having to put a lot of time and effort in to getting rid of them and the school cant be bothered oh i went down today a got the tea tree condisioner and it great got a load out you have to use it reglar it never clames to solve the problem for good but it's realy easy to use and you dont have to wash it out well i can only try to win the war on the buggers

School nurses cheching for 'nits' has been stopped because it can also technically be classed as assault. Children used to be checked in hospital ( I did it during my training years ago) but that has been stopped as well due to the assault issue.

well i think it's an asalt on my son that he has to wash his hair every two days and go trought the torment of at least a thirty minute comb to get the bloody things out and with the chance that you will be back to square one in a few weeks time if he gets caught again it make me so mad oh star i got this eleric comb but it does not seem to be that good i got the tea tree conditioner i found it much better you can see your getting them out with the elecric one what happenes to them are you still having to use the fine comb to remove them after you have zapped them

no, no star, the time to worry is when you start saying "ooh, I don't agree with all this political correctness"

Apparently they don't like hairspray!

The children at my dd's school are checked by the teachers regularly for headlice. It has never occurred to me to regard this as an assault!

star thanks but i think i will use the wet hair and the tea tree oil and do it regulary thanks for your help xxx

I have never heard anything like it, nurses not being able to check for lice what do gooder moaned about that then. Maybe if there were more regular checks then there wouldnt be so many outbreaks. I never had nits at school, though all around did, and all with clean hair, dont know how. Cant wait for ds to go to school and bring all those lovely things home.

Anoushka, don't believe what they say on the pack, nothing kills the eggs!!! You have to painstakingly remove the darn things. They are brown and near the scalp, "glued" onto the hair strand. If you see white ones they are hatched eggs. The lice themselves are so gross, I hate them with a vengeance, even more than cockraoches and that's saying something! They're small brown insects, but they cannot fly or jump as some people think, so they are spread directly from hair to hair. Kids are always so close to each other it's not too hard for them to walk on over! (Which is why they suggest you always tie long hair back and keep boys hair as short as you can stand!)

Last year the whole family got infected before we realised dd had caught them at school. I was so horrified. I used to use my brush on dd's hair, so I was infested as badly as she was! (I have learned my lesson now btw, no more sharing brushes!) We tried mousses, lice shampoos, combs...the nits just kept hatching. Finally, I bought a really good fine metal comb (the only way to go), and used conditioner on dry hair, combed over and over, rinsing the comb in water and vinegar. The vinegar dissolves the "glue" on the nits! Worked really well. Then hand-picked any remaining nits out of the dry hair. Did this every day for a week before they were clear - thought I was going to go mad!

Now I spray dd's hair every day before school with a preventative "Quit Nits" spray, which is a mixture of geranium, lavender and eucalyptus oils (smells nice too!). It's worked well so far - touch wood!!!

hi mollipops thanks for your tips you were saying conditioner on dry hair is that your regular one i am using the tea tree one every two days on justed wet hair and put loads of the conditioner in and comb like mad but i have only done this twice only found the buggers at the weekend oh with this tea tree you dont have to wash out would you have to wash out regular conditioner i must try the vinegar good tip i will try any thing to get rid of them i am trying not to use cemicals i wast to try a natral metod for a while any way

Yes we just used regular conditioner straight onto dry hair (water makes them curl up), then rinsed the hair and left it, though sometimes we washed it afterwards with teatree shampoo. I think the teatree is more of a preventative thing, can't see that it would stop the nits (eggs) hatching. I know it's a pain and so frustrating, but they have a life cycle of about 14 days so you need to keep up daily combing for at least 2 weeks - sorry! Good luck, hope you don't find too many more!

Mollipops,
Where do you buy that Quit Nits spray? I can't stand any more of the little bleeders!! (Sorry, crap day, in mood for lots of swearing)

Hi Salalex - Haven't heard of Quit Nits, but I've got some Children's Herbal Conditioner from Boots (about £4 odd but included a nit comb)which contains tea tree and lavender oils and can be used to remove existing lice by the wet combing method and also doesn't need to be rinsed out so can be used as a repellent. Also, if you've got an ASDA near you, they do a head lice repellent spray for £2.99. I smother my kiddies' hair with this every morning before school/pre-school and so far it's kept the critters at bay (touch wood!) Hope you get rid of the little pests soon

Cheers Chanelno5, will dispatch dh to asda tomorrow! And how do you do a smiley?!

Hi salalex, you might need to go with chanel's advice, I think the Quit Nits is only available here in Australia (it was made and marketed by a West Aussie mum - yay!) tho I haven't searched the net for it. And a smiley is a colon : and a right bracket ) next to each other (no space between). A grin is a colon and capital o. And a wink is a semi-colon and ).

Does anyone know where I can get 'leave in' conditioner? Avon used to do one called quicktouch but stopped when they changed their range. I always found it really helpful when nit-combing because I could bath the kids and then go and do the tedious combing somewhere else afterwards - a long job with 3 of them to do.

Combing conditioned hair with a metal toothed nit comb has always worked for me. I do it every other day when the kids are infected until they are clear. I usually do it the day before they go back to school after holidays so that I know that they are going back clean and if there is a problem at school I usually comb through weekly just in case. I've never gone to the expense of chemical cures and haven't found them necessary.

Is it inevitable that kids will get lice? What's the peak age (someone earlier commented that their child was older therefore less likely to catch them)?

PamT, You can get leave in nit conditioner from Boots - see Chanelno5's message. Otherwise, there's loads around. I like the spray ones best. Have a nosey in Boots, there's tonnes.
And Monkey, if yours don't get nits, you'll be very lucky indeed. They're everywhere, no class distinctions! And best of all,age is no barrier, so you'll probably get them too!
Cheers folks for other info.

I agree with salalex I'm afraid, Monkey, you'll be very lucky if your kids escape their schoolyears nit-free! I think the main reason younger kids are more prone to getting them is the tend to get physically closer when playing/working together...since they actually need to have hair-to-hair contact to catch them. The only ways to reduce the risks is to tie back long hair or have a short style, and to spray with a preventative spray or use teatree shampoo when you know there is an outbreak (sounds like ebola or something). Our class puts a sign outside the door when there has been a case of them so we know to check. It's been there almost all year so far!