NITS: Conflicting information confusing me & a little dilemma too...

[MamaTama]

Myself & my 1 year old DS just got them (I never had as a child, nor in 10 years of teaching!). Was mortified when I discovered a full-grown one in my boy's beautiful curly locks & even more so when I found I had them too in my waist-length mane!

I borrowed a comb & got some herbal/essential oil shampoo for me & did the conditioner/wet combing thing on both of us that night, but not before (totally freaked out) I stripped my just-changed bed & his cot & lugged all the sheets etc. back to the laundrette for a boil wash. Then I got a leaflet from our local health authority which says the lice will quickly die if not on someone's scalp so treating clothes & bedding is unnecessary.

I'm confused about the 2 week treatment cycle though: in the leaflet it talks about a 3-4 day repetition of wet combing to remove any big ones & any newly hatched ones from eggs left in the hair from previous combings. Today I got a Nitty Gritty comb from the pharmacy but the guy told me I'd have to do it every day for a fortnight to be rid of them.

I asked him if he'd ever had headlice & he replied "Oh yeah, but that was as a kid in Kenya". When probed on his family's method of removal he told me they just put parrafin on everyone's heads til the bugs were no more!

He also told me before I left that if the infestation recurs too many times/the lice are not eradicated it provokes scabies (ughhh!) - is that true?

We're due to go on a trip to Dublin for the weekend (leaving Thursday afternoon back Sunday morning). It's with a group of people I've never met before to check out the community food initiatives over there & we'll be meeting a fair few people from the Irish co-ops & sharing a rented apartment with several others from the English ones & he's so cute people are bound to want to hold him/play with him.

What I want to know is:

• if I do a treatment on both of us Thursday before we leave home will that be enough til we get back Sunday or should I take the comb with us (DS screams blue murder when I try & rinse & if there's no bath in the flat I won't be able to keep him still to do it anyway)?
• should I warn tell the other members & if so, how? If I do they might be a bit distant with us when we're meant to be forming a nice group spirit which would be a real shame but if I don't I risk them catching it unawares which I think would be totally unfair (unless what I read is true & the "hatchlings" which appear in between combings cannot pass to another head for 6 days?

It's a confusing issue & I'd really appreciate some solid advice/info.

Thanks in advance to anyine who replies.

ok-nitty gritty combs are fantastic and if you do a thorough job they take out EVERYTHING>

comb before you go and then again when you come back.

don't stress.

don't tell everyone. unless you are going to be literally head to head with them, they won't catch them.

OMG, I just re-read the OP & all the typos are shameful (should have previewed before posting but was being lazy: I won't correct them all but ask all readers to mentally do so in the knowledge that I'm painfully aware of all my spelling mistakes/omissions/mistyped words etc.) too tired to do anything about it now though!

The guy in the pharmacy doesn't sound very well trained. You don't need to comb every day, but you do need to make sure that you're removing any babies before they start to lay. Every 3-4 days is probably about right.

Scabies is NOTHING to do with head lice - it's caused by a mite which burrows under the skin.

Ah thanks for that TMMJ, that's the thing though, DS endears himself to people so quickly & easily that I'm sure at some point he'll get picked up/cuddled/held at close range or whatever & don't want to just blurt it out in a panic if I think they might be within catching distance. Is what I read about the hatchlings true then?

I was well impressed at the amount of eggs & tiny baby ones that I got out of DS's squeaky clean looking hair this evening with the NitFree, but as I'm a single parent I have to do my own "blind" as it were, so not sure I'm getting them all out & then I'll just end up giving them back to DS.

It's a nightmare, I'm itching as I type this & don't know if it's creepy-crawlies moving around on my scalp or if I'm just imagining it! Can't see any in the mirror on myself, but then even inspecting my son's hair & scalp up close in strong light I had no idea what was lurking in there!

What about the frequency of combings to get rid of this lot? Daily? 4 times in a fortnight? There's so much variation in the official advice I have no idea what to do for the best.

Thanks to you too Daisy, you must have replied as I was typing that last message.

I'm glad to hear the scabies thing was a false alarm anyway, my stomach lurched at the mere sound of the word without me even knowing exactly what it was! I wonder why he said that? Misinformed or sick sense of humour?

So if I do it just before we go & just after we get back that should be ok?

I can't believe I escaped it all these (36) years & my LO has got it just as he turned 1.

Off to wet comb now, goodnight!

Will check if any more answers to my questions in the morning...

i find tea tree oil shampoo & conditioner keeps them at bay

i use the comb once a week, don't find anything

i've been itching for a couple of days and did a comb through in the shower this morning and found about twenty. ewwwwwwww. no sign of them on my children at all though (although will be combing them through as a preventative.) I have NO idea where they came from, if Dcs have none. eww though, just blargh!

I know that doesn't help and i will be going home to boil wash everything, 'just in case' even if it has no scientific basis, i will feel better! (& I'm 40 and have never had them before!!)

Am spraying dd and myself with Nitty Gritty prevention spray, tying her hair up in plaits, and combing her twice weekly, nothing so far. Though her BF at school has had them.

My understanding is that you're ok for a few days after a treatment and/or comb through - the Nitty Gritty comb is most effective (but does tear and damage hair, IME), and repeating combing every 3 days for two weeks is a good idea.

Now that dd is at school, I plan to comb every Friday night as routine - if nothing else, it'll get us both used to doing it

Can someone please describe the itching? I get occasional feelings of something moving on my head, but no itching - dh says I'm being paranoid and its psychosomatic, he may well be right (have combed, nothing).

ng comb does not damage hair if you use excellent quality conditioner, ime. with cheap stuff it really drags it through, so avoid.

Apparently the itching is caused by the saliva of the lice, not them moving about - and about 25% of people don't ever get itching.

The boys and I had them a week after the start of term - I used Hedrin on the first night plus Nitty-Gritty comb, then Nitty Gritty oil on the second day plus comb, Nitty Gritty oil 3 days later, and Hedrin a week later as it says. There was nothing from the third combing. But I'll be doing them with conditioner weekly now.

I've also got the Nitty Gritty repellent and am spraying them with that every morning (if I remember!)

do it Thursday, no need to tell anyone IMO. They could all have nits already especially if they have DCs.

But when we went through nitty phases I did it every day because I couldn't bear the thought of the damn things crawling round my head and i got very absorbed by how many/how big there were - very reassuring to comb out loads of biggies then fewer and smaller until none at all. Use gallons of conditioner. Makes your hair lovely and shiny too!

My DCs gave nits to my mum she went to doctor with itchy scalp ahd he roared with laughter.

oh god, my head is covered in bug spit.

Hedrin is bloody lovely

Reading this has made me itch

my knees are now itchy and i'm pretty sure they're not hairy enough to harbour head lice

Are you combing your knees yet, Persephone?

Will try more conditioner, Aitch (its pricey stuff already) but think dd and I just have too fine hair. Possible more patience would help too

do you wet the hair also, eli? dd's hair is very curly, i'd seen on here that people recommended slathering on loads of cheapo conditioner so i tried that first and nearly tore her hair out. cue the phytologie hair mask...

scratch scratch

oh i feel so manky! I know they only like clean hair blah blah blah. I could trot that out all the time when it was other people. blargh! I want to bathe in dettol.

slap! to self.

musn't get carried away it's only bugs.

Think of them as persistent midges, less creepy

Aitch, yes, I wet hair...think it tears mine more than dd's, but then again its harder to comb oneself. Probably rushing too much, you know how it can be, finding time to wash hair let alone comb the stuff....

deffo more tearing when i do mine. it's the angle, designed for mums on kids i think

deffo more tearing when i do mine. it's the angle, designed for mums on kids i think

Assuming it won't be long before we're blessed with the little visitors...

Do you wash the hair, slap on some conditioner then set-to with the comb? Or conditioner on dry hair?

this mornings comb-out in the shower with tea tree conditioner produced 3 beasties as opp to yesterdays 20-odd. I am winning the battle of the beastie. all 3 DCs still mysteriously bug-free suspect ex who slept in my bed last week (but i changed the sheets as soon as i threw him out of it and i emphasize he slept in it solo) and hugged me the week before. he's manky.

Try the x.it range for head lice, its available in most pharmacies, (lloyds and Superdrug), its always worked wonders for me!!there website is as follows :

www.xitheadlice.co.uk