Nits: treat or leave?

[joyfulspike]

My best mate's kids have nits. My nephew also has nits which my sister has a cupboard full of various lotions and potions to tackle them with.

My mate won't treat her kids' nits . She says there's no point coz they'll just get them again. She also says she's against animal cruelty and doesn't want to kill a liveing thing just to make her kids lives better.

Thankfully we have avoided nits so far, but its only a matter of time. I thought treating them was the responsible thng to do? It seems cruel to not. Personally, if a child in ds's preschool had nits I'd expect the parents to do the necessary.

What are your views please? treat or leave??

leave them!??? she's insane.

FFS - treat them. So selfish IMO as they will infect others!!

No point "treating" with chemicals as althoug they may kill the first lot they don't kill all the eggs & they come back. They have a 21 day life cycle so combing with lots of conditioner is the best way to get the big'uns out & stop the eggs latching on again.

I find this site helpful & you can get the kits on prescription from your GP

Nitty-gritty option some MN-ers swear by!

My stepchildren's mum had this attitude for years, so I used ot catch them form them. It was only whne she got an infected area form having them for so long that she finally started to treat them.

BTW your mate is MAD -sorry but it's cruel to her kids & everyone else's!!

Thanks guys, if we are ever infested, I will be doing my best to get un-infested pdq.

I think the whole do no harm to animals thing is bonkers in this case.

THought I'd get an impartial opinion as we've never come accorss this before.

I'm afraid its NOT a wind-up. I wish it was, i dread visiting her or she and her kids visiting us! ICK [horrified emoticon]

Kerry you can't "treat " lice- all you can do is keep combing through every 2-3 days for the 21 days or so till you don't get any more! If you exclude kids with nits most of the schools in the country would be half empty!!

But I do think persistant negligance like the OP's friend ought to get an obligatory chat from the school nurse and/or HV to point out the error of their ways!!

Your friend is a nutter.

And it's a horrible thing to make her children live with. I hope they put her in a lice-infested home when she's old.

Why the fuck would anyone leave insects crawling all over their childrens head! Your friend is clearly barking and they are not harmless either, they can cause really bad skin irritation in the form of eczema if left untreated, it is a reaction to their droppings. Yes, they actually shit on the heads of the people they infest.

Boss, think Kerry's point was you schools should exclude those who refuse to treat them, not those who have them.

Hedrin works. You comb them out dead. Then repeat in 7 or is it 10 days to get the hatchlings and that should be that.

Until they get them from people like your mate.

Well my DC's schools have got sensible about this now and they specifically ask us not to send our children into school when they have live lice.

Where does she think the phrase feeling lousy comes from. A big infestation can make a child feel really ill.

not only do they shit on the heads of the infected, they actually fart their way our of their egg sacs.

Dirty little feckers

this has to be a wind up, surely?

along with threadworm woman...

Wet combing with conditioner works perfectly well too. It takes longer to get rid of them, but it keeps them under control and ensures that as soon as the eggs get hatched, they aren't given a chance to grow and reproduce.

I was going to suggest that you give your friend a leaflet with information about lice, because I didn't know about them causing eczema. But of course all the leaflets out there, quite reasonably assume that you want to get rid of them, not that you might go in for long term keeping them as pets, so I don't think I've ever seen one which details the health risks.

You're not allowed to send dc to school here if they have lice. They have to stay home, be treated and can't go back to school till they have been checked by the GP and have a doctor's certificate to say they're clear. Lice at school is fairly uncommon here IME as a result

I also think if she isn't willing to treat them (i.e. kill them with chemicals or suffocate them with oil), then she won't have it in her to break their legs with combing either.

So she should SHAVE the dc's heads and her own too FGS

She sounds a right nitwit. I am not into killing animals for the heck of it either or when I find it can be avoided but honestly I have no qualms about killing rats, cockroaches or lice if they enter my home.

LSBR, I only know this because my friend works in a dermatologists office and they quite often treat children with bad eczema caused by nit infestation (and now my head is itching)! Ewww

ffs, the things people do in the name of not being cruel to animals... what about her kids?

barking.