Wetcombing for headlice - a few questions

[Tinkjon]

Not sure if DD has lice/nits or not...

1. Is it normal to find lots of eggs but no lice whatsoever? (this happened on 2 combing sessions).

1. I did one comb on me and DH and there was nothing showing - do we still have to comb ours until DD is clear, or can we leave ours now?

1. I combed DD once and found lots of things which I'm assuming are eggs (though I'm still not sure) but no lice. Then did a second comb 2 days later. I assumed that I'd have caught most of the eggs 1st-time round but a second comb today still found quite a lot - maybe 100 the first time and 50 the second. Does that sound normal?

1. How on earth do you manage to comb long hair that thoroughly? Do people feel sure they've got every single strand? Because I wasn't sure at all. I tied it all up in sections and did it methodically but I still found it so hard to tell what I'd done and what I hadn't.

Tea tree is a deterrant rather than a treatment.

You can get some nice tea tree shampoos/conditioners though.

If you are only doing detection every fortnight you can easily get an infestation. If a lice lands on the head day after the detection. 8 eggs in 24hrs for 14 days...that would be over 100 eggs.

IME you don't have to be as thorough with a detction wet comb. I don't tend to section the hair - just make sure my comb follows all the beds around the head. Takes less than 10 mins rather than an hour.

TBH I can usually tell by the itching.

And no I don't wish nitty gritty is wider. It would not contact the curvy scalp as easily.

How often do you need to detect comb then - once a week?

Also, I don't understand why you can't just run the comb from the top of your head right through to the nape in one swoop, as surely that would touch all hairs from root to tip? Why do I have to separate each longitude bit into several latitude bits, iyswim?

Well I detect comb when the DTDs bring a letter home saying there is lice in teh class (so about once a month).

TBH I don't think the very tips of the comb has the spirals - so you need to get teh body of the comb against the scalp and you can't do that if you don't section ear to ear etc (longitudingally?)...I don't actually section it latitudily, I just work around gradually from one side to the other on each layer.

I must be doing something right though as I (usually) can clear even the most widespread infestaion (OK ~100 eggs is the most we have had) in 3 days

Why aren't there nit nurses any more? I need to be told yes or no to whether we have an infestation.

DD (4 months) has black dots on her scalp quite often. Is this dirt, or lice poo? She's barely got any hair. She has big bro, though, who's been at nursery where they often have outbreaks. I've checked his hair and nothing. I checked mine and white flakes and itchiness. Might be dandruff, but used special treatment anyway. But been on hols for a week since then and not checked. Felt better though...

is the itchiness from lice moving, or allergy to their poo? Can you get itchy/sore bumps on head from anything else?

3 stars, my head is itchy too but I still haven't found any lice at all!

DNA, that's what I do - section it longitudinally, and the comb seems to stay in enough contact with the scalp to be good enough, to me. But everyone seems to also section latitudinally and I'm not sure why. I have been doing it latitudinally too, just in case, but I'm not sure what extra you gain from doing that (other than more stress for me and DD! )

Arrgggh I wrote a long reply earlier and then DD3 prest refresh and I lost it .

I think I may be confused with longitude and latitude.

I section the hair in horizontal bands. I don't actually section vertically although I do work around each horizontal band methodically, overlapping each stroke with the comb.

I can't seem to get the body of the comb (i.e. not just the tips which have no spirals) to contact close enough to the scalp on anything other than the hair sectioned into horizontal bands. Dn't forget that the eggs are usually laid within 1cm of the scalp and IME teh baby lce live on the scalp. Also I often just to a "sweep from the top to teh nape" as a detection. When I find something I then section the head properly and always find loads more on top of what I have found without sectioning (mostly eggs). Sectioning this way also means that you have confidence that you have done hte whole head. Finally - try and actually use the comb at different angles on each sub-section if you can so that you get eggs which are attatched to all sides of the shaft.

At the end of the day. You will find a method which works for you and that is all that matters. It doesn't really matter what I or anyone else does - it has to work for you.

3stars
How did you check your hairs? You need to use a detection comb (The plastic 50p ones from the chemist are OK for detection. Nitty Gritty will detect and treat). You can't reliably check visually

The grit in her hair could be louse poo - it looks like dark sand grains, and could equally be sand grains. You will recognise a louse when you see one. Also you might want to look for the eggs which stick to eh shaft of the hair. They are about 2mm long and the way to tell if they are eggs is to see if yo can get them off the hair. The only way to get live lice eggs off without a comb is to grip them between your fingernails and pull the egg to teh end of and off the shaft. They should be dark so on a babies fine hair they should be easy to spot (uunless she has very dark hair). As for the itchyness that could be the physical crawling or it could be them biting. The bites are often red (and if there are lots of crawlers can be seen visually) and itchy. As the bites can hang around after treatment a child can be itchy for a few days without any actual lice.

I think also shampoo irritation etc. can cause red/itchy head - so it might not be headlice.

HTH

hi,
sympathy for you. they will go! try babyoil-lots and lots- for long hair and use nitty gritty. its amazing. good luck.