Lice Help!!!!

Lol - I’m in the same boat!! My DS had head lice for the first time ever this week. I took him to the school nurse to confirm as I wasn’t really certain.
She told me to wet his hair and cover in thick conditioner. Then use a special nit comb to comb through every inch of his hair.

She told me not to bother with home remedies like mayonnaise, tea tree oil, etc. The lice can also be resistant to store bought lice shampoo, so conditioner and a comb is the best way.

It took about an hour on Wednesday - The unhatched eggs are brown specks, and the lice are easy to spot on the comb.

The hatched eggs are white so don’t worry about them too much.

We did it again last night and there were only a few unhatched eggs left. I’ll do it again tonight and keep doing it until the comb is clean every time.

It’s a bummer for sure😞

Actually, You do NOT need to do any of that. I got this from liceology.com, but you can get the same info from any reputable lice info page (except probably those for lice sprays, lol).

It is always important to remember that head lice are a human parasite and require human blood to survive. They are not environmental pests so pesticidal sprays for furniture and bedding are unnecessary and pose a risk to health. Vacuuming is the safest and best way to remove head lice or fallen hairs with attached nits from upholstered furniture, rugs, stuffed animals and cars. Laundering of recently worn hats, scarves, coats/jackets, stuffed animals and bedding is also the safest and most effective way to kill head lice. Head lice are not like bed bugs, they do not burrow through bedding into mattresses and pillows, so spraying these items is not necessary. Keep in mind that head lice generally do not live longer than 24 hours off a human host, so when treating your home focus on the areas that the person with head lice has been within that time frame. So many families completely exhaust themselves cleaning, vacuuming, spraying, and scrubbing their homes during their battle with lice. Try to keep it simple and safe, your house is not your battleground, your child's head is.

IF all else fails there are people who pick off lice as a profession. One of my friends had to resort to this when her daughter refused to cut her long thick hair and they could not get rid of the lice.

Oh momma. I have some serious lice PTSD. 3 DDs all with lovely thick hair. Curse words fly forth from my mouth the second they reach for their heads to scratch. We've had lice 4 times. 4 MF)&!@$^# times. I've read so many research reports on lice that I feel like I have an honorary degree.

Here's what we do:
1. We get the bug killer from Walmart. Pick your poison. Rit, Nix. As long as it is poison and not "all natural." Put it on, let it do it's thing, rinse and get ready to comb. I've treated lice other ways and it is always the best when we start with at least a little poison.
2. Get the good comb. The one that comes in the box is crap and if it is plastic throw it away. The Fairy Tales one is our best one. You can get it at Ulta if you can't find it anywhere else.
3. Tie all the hair up and start combing from the bottom. Wet, dry, or covered in conditioner, it doesn't really matter but I pull out less hair if it is slightly damp, sprayed with olive oil or has some conditioner.
4. Rinse hair again and dry it dry with the hottest blow dryer your kid can stand but don't go crazy.
5. Get the flat iron and get as close to the end of hair as you can/kid can stand this. Do you know I bought a little tiny flat iron - half inch across travel size handle - just for lice??? Crazy. But it works. Flat iron about 1 inch from scalp to ends. If the hair is wet, you will burn your kid. Dry hair is necessary. If it has a little product on it, that is fine. Lice live next to the scalp. Nits/ lice that is more than an inch off the head really does not present a huge problem - don't take that wrong. They need to go. But that half inch off the scalp is where you make your lice removing money.
6. Next day, comb again.
7. Two days later, comb again.
8. Two days later, comb again.
9. Two days later, comb again.
10. Two days later, comb again. By now, you should have broken the cycle of lice but if not, you'll soon know it. Google their life cycle and that can help you figure out where your lice are in their life cycle. If you see any adult lice - you need to have time to break the entire cycle. If you only have nits and no adults, it is a bit harder but honestly, we always go as if we had an adult just laying the egg.
11. Three days later comb again and repeat until you are about 2 weeks out or are absolutely not seeing anything.

We can't help it but we do clean well and do the bedding (always on as hot as it can be!) but it is unnecessary. Research is pretty clear on that but pillow cases just beg to be changed in my mind.

We do have the RobiComb. It is not effective to remove nits on my thick haired girls. It is effective at telling me if we have a problem. I use the comb for maintenance.

We have used the lice ladies and they sold us on a system that was nothing more than olive oil with peppermint, clove and tree tea oil. I make my own now. Depending on which kid is the offending member, I might let them sleep with it on overnight. Research does NOT show that this is helpful or that it will kill the nits. What kills the nits is breaking the life cycle - and that is combing. If you don't comb, it will not go away.

And the most important thing in our house - the edict that nobody shares combs. Ever.

You have my sympathy.

The only way I was ever able to get rid of it on my son was to take him to a professional nitpicker.

We went through this with my daughter a couple years ago. She has ALOT of hair. I couldn't seem to get rid of it. I ended up taking her to a place where they did it for you. It was expensive but so worth just being done with it.

oh, btdt with BOTH girls and it's a nightmare, as they both have long hair. I used the RID and washed everything in hot water. I feel ya momma, its sickening!

There are services that can do it for you, but its costly.

Y'all are making my head itch.

Our school nurse swears by one of those OTT lights with magnifier when lice hunting. Since many of us are crafters, you might have one around the house already.

Get a Robi-comb. Battery operated comb/lice zapper. Best thing ever.

They are annoying wotsits.

Best advice wash hair as normal, make sure it is soaking wet. Really smother it in hair conditioner.
Then get a nit comb, section the hair. Comb each section, wipe comb on paper towel to see if there are bugs, rinse the comb and comb again. Keep the comb close to the scalp.and do the length of the hair in a fluid movement.
Do this routine on day 1, day 5, day 9 and day 13.
There will be white nits left. But they are the empty egg shells. You should have all the lice and broken their life cycle.

Don't share towels or hats and keep her hair tied up. No need to clean or spray anything. Lice have to have direct head to head contact to spread.

On day 1 you will find adult lice. Day 5, 9 and 13 you should only find the tiny ones. If you find any adults your kiddo has caught lice again.

If one of you has head lice, check the whole family as you don't always itch if you have them.

Good luck

We’ve dealt with it twice and my dh is a pedi who recommends resultz lice treatment. It’s all we’ve used and we’ve never had a problem.

You lather m, sit 10 min (I sit 20 min and make my kids do the same because I do t want anything left but it’s for no reason than in my head), rinse and wash and rinse, comb after. Repeat (I think) 1 week later. It disintegrates the lice. Have never had a problem of lice coming back. It’s all Dh recommends. You don’t have to comb and comb everyday. If you have adult lice then it kills the eggs. If some new ones hatch they don’t get big enough to lay eggs and then you repeat a week later so get rid of all of those little ones and done. Hair up in a bun for a week or more because I don’t want to catch from anyone else.

I've never heard of this! Thanks for sharing. I had to go check it out and was fearful that it was prescription. Then I saw I could buy it at Costco and had a wee bit of a panic attack. If I need the Costco size... shoot me now. 

Truly, after the second bout of lice in our house, I thought of getting a masters in epidemiology only to study lice to come up with something that would dissolve their glue, or a heat system safe and FDA approvable in US (there is one in the UK). Seriously, those little bugs got in my head!