NEED TO KNOW, IN DESPAIR ABOUT NITS

[jollymum]

My son's hair is way past his collar becaue I can't get it cut! I hedrin him one weekend, do it again on the next weekend and by Thursday he's riddled again! Today I sat him down and have combed out about 10 big lice, loads of babies but my main problem is this. He's got millions of eggs (am I right that the black ones stuck to the head are eggs and the white ones empty cases?) and I can't get them out. If I sat and scraped them out with my nails it would take me an hour to do a small square patch. What can I do and would a hairdresses cut his hair with eggs in it? It's too long to clipper and I don't know how to anyway. Feeling rfeally p off about it, 'cos I can see them in his hair when he's close to me so his teacher must think I'm an uncaring dirty cow

I take them off the comb with a pin, so I can see what I've caught, that I've caught something, it's not just a brown speck. My eyesight is supposed to be normal but I usually can't tell for sure if I've got one unless I hold the pin with suspect brown speck up to the light and watch for movement.

I then usually rinse the pin off, but One time I wiped the critters off the pin onto some tissue in a little plastic pot. They couldn't climb out... and They were still wiggling up to about 36 hours later. So I assume they can survive that long on a hairbrush, hat, hair that falls onto a bed, etc.

I don't like the Nitty Gritty comb because you can't see if you've caught anything or not. I don't even see how you be sure you've wiped it off completely. Unless they've reached monster size with legs wriggling everywhere.

F*ing pests, they are.

Hi jollymum, havent read whole thread, but had similar problem to you with three children. Tried all the nice treatments then after getting it myself three times use protherm, need to do patch test as it is strong. But kills everything nothing can escape then just comb comb comb. There will be nothing left in his head.

a neighbour recently suggested dog flea powder to get rid of them as she has used it successfully. She advises do it outdoors, cover head in powder, tie a plastic bag over the hair, leave for 2 hours, wash out!
Unusually my ds does not have them at the moment so i haven't tried it.

I draped ds in large white towel, and combed all the little bastards AND their eggs out. It took 3 1/2 hours. I wiped the comb on the white towel when I had done a piece of hair.

It was disgusting, the towel was covered in horrid wriggling things, and I took great pleaure in squashing them all.

Towel was forthwith binned immediately...ugh

my head is so itchy, just reading this thread and because we had a letter home this week saying my dd's class had a nit outbreak, will I KNOW if we have them ?

how easy are they to miss?

I have done an initial come through of her hair, took over an hour, with conditioner, but still worry about it

You can SEE them jumping.....

But if they haven't hatched yet, the eggs look like sesame seeds, creamish in colour, and favourite places are nape of neck, and behind ears.

They look nothing like dandruff..........

Hi everyone I am a hairdresser and the advice I always give is to rub 2 teaspoons of pure neat tea tree oil all over dry hair ( you may need more than 2 teaspoons for very long hair )leave it on the hair for 5 to 10 mins then wash off using tea tree shampoo.
There are now on the market specialist tea tre based lice treatment shampoos especialy designed for children with all natural things and none of the nasty chemicals alot of the comon brand treatments contain , in that range the best thing i have seen is a tea tree leave in spray to spray on the hair each day which smells lovely to us but the lice hate it and wont go anywhere near the hair with it on i find its a must for my daughter who has long hair and is at school and she has been in close contact to some of her little friends who have had lice and not once as she caught it.
Oh and on the point of hair cuts im afraid to say that its true that hairdressers SHOULD NOT if they are reputable cut hair of anyone with headlice and should stop cutting the hair if they are unaway of it when they start and then find them during the cut.
Its not because they dont want to its down to health and saftey guidlines as of the risk of passing it on to other clients

thanls fizzbuzz, I will watch out for them, yeeeeuuch

Peanutbutterkid - wipe the nitty gritty comb on a new bit of bogroll each time you swipe, and you will see the little darlings on the tissue.

There is no sensible advice in this post but I hope it will make you laugh.

Several years ago I was going out with a very nice Marine who had been in Ireland for 3 months. I was soooo excited that he was coming home. I am a nurse and to earn a bit of extra cash I agreed to work a shift in a nursing home the day before he was due home. To my absolute HORROR, the matron who handed over to me calmly informed me that 17 of the 18 patients had SCABIES and at present it wasn't under control. How I got through that shift I will never know.

When I got home I was so frightened that I would have scabies and that I would pass them onto gorgeous boyfriend that I raided the cupboard under the sink and found a can of 'Household flea spray', 'suitable for carpets and upholstry'. I sprayed myself from head to foot with it, wrapped myself in a sheet and slept on the lounge floor (so the scabies wouldn't jump into my bed).

It worked. I never got scabies. Funny that.

I am not alone then!

Dd constantly gets them as unless her preschool gets everyone to treat their kids at the same time, we are on a road to nowhere.

I think I am going to have to go back to the combing every other night, as I have tried Hedrin, Full Marks, Lyclear, vinegar blah blah.

I have to say, we probably only wash dd's hair once a week, although she does lie back in the bubbles from the bath.

I know conditioner and combing rigorously is the only answer, but being heavily preggers, I am finding it a physical pain in the arse as dd is not compliant! I feel some bribery and corruption is on the cards!

Joy!

Where can I get tea tree oil from?

Message withdrawn

Poor notsojollymum. Firstly, the reason that two Hedrin treatments a week apart isnt working for you is that the treatment will kill only crawling lice, not the eggs. As you apply one dose, you kill all the adults and young which are out of the egg, but new ones are hatching all the time and by about day 6 you've got new adults mating and reproducing (yuck, I know)

As for those empty egg cases, some people say that vinegar loosens the cement that they are attached with. I dont know. The only way I know to remove them is by hand, although a good light and fine tweezers can be very useful. Some nit combs, the metal ones with long prongs, can remove some of the nits if your son's hair isnt too fine. Otherwise you'll have to grow them out like a bad perm. Be brave!!!

Sorry if my message doesnt seem to follow on. For some reason when I wrote it my computer hadnt downloaded more than Thursday the 8th!!! Oh the wonders of cyberspace. I'm going to have to get some more charcoal for my old computer

my mum swears by grapefruit seed extract for nits. i'm not sure what exactly you are meant to do with it but i;m sure if you google it, you will find out.