Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
General Discussions
The Watercooler
Lice help
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 65004" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>I've well and truly been there done that with nits, lice and the whole darn thing. Plus I studied them at uni when we did parasitology. I KNOW lice and nits.</p><p></p><p>So, added in all my experience of kids who got repeat infestations from their inner-city school - here's some facts to smash those labour-wasting myths.</p><p></p><p>1) These things ARE species specific, as the vet said. They die if the try to feed off a different species.</p><p></p><p>2) They NEED blood heat. Even the animals can't survive more than a few hours at room temperature. In a hot summer they will live longer away from the scalp, but they really do need body heat, not merely a degree or two less.</p><p></p><p>3) Lice, human lice, come in three different forms. Pubic lice are quite different an a different genus (Pthiris pubis) and also look quite different. They CAN be found on other parts of the body, but generally will migrate to their preferred location. The other one, Pediculosis humanis, comes in two sub-species - capitis, which heads for the head, and corporis, which prefers the body hair of other areas. If you get any of these lice on you, they will, as quickly as they can, migrate to their preferred area and begin feeding.</p><p></p><p>4) Because they cannot survive away from the body for more than a few hours, you really don't have to do much to stop an infestation cycle. Use this knowledge.</p><p>Put all combs, hats, hair brushes, scrunchies etc in a plastic bag in the freezer overnight. No viable lice or nits will be left alive by morning.</p><p>Linen and clothing - toss it into the laundry tub. When you eventually get around to washing, do it in COLD water and hang it on the clothes line. A tumble dryer is OK too - the hot setting will probably be too hot, but prolonged cold (below 70 F is best). Just remember, the beasts & eggs die if they're more than a few inches away from a human scalp for more than a few hours. Unless the car is constantly in use, or another child uses the same headrest within half an hour, I doubt the car headrest is the source.</p><p></p><p>5) To treat an infestation or to check for one - do it in sunlight if you can. I've not done it under UV, it probably would work. Put your own hair in a shower cap (to protect yourself). A long loose strand of hair can be a highway for these critturs, so keep hair tied back.</p><p>Treatment - use a pesticide shampoo if you know there is an active infestation. Otherwise, wash hair as normal and then put conditioner in the child's hair.</p><p>And here is where you go searching - have a fine tooth comb, a wide tooth comb, a bowl of water and some towels handy. First get the tangles out with the wide tooth comb. Then use the fine tooth comb to go through the hair AND the scalp, looking for beasties. Rinse the combs in the bowl of water to trap them. The aim of this exercise is to catch lice, dead or alive and remove them. Eggs can be got here too, but step one - leave the eggs and get the lice.</p><p>Now when you've got all the creatures you think you can, change direction of combing and start again.</p><p>And again. When you are well-practiced, this should take at least half an hour. If you're a novice, allow an hour to do all three lots of combing.</p><p>THEN go after the eggs. Again, use sunlight.</p><p></p><p>And remember, you WON'T get all the eggs. And even with strong pesticide shampoo, you won't have killed all the lice or the eggs, only some of them. There is a 'knock'down' effect where they seem to lie down and die, but they're not all dead. If you don't remove them while they're 'out of it', they will come round and evade the comb. The conditioner wil l still trap them, though, and rinsing the combs in the bowl will trap them in the water so you can control where they end up (down the drain or on the garden is fine).</p><p></p><p>And the most important step of all - DO IT AGAIN IN SIX DAYS.</p><p></p><p>You do this in case there were any unkilled eggs you missed which have since hatched. Any hatchlings will still be too sexually immature to lay eggs, so re-doing the treatment now will catch them while immature. If you get any, then repeat the process AGAIN, in another six days.</p><p></p><p>And something else very important - there are many placers a child can get nits (and lice). But once they have them, then EVERYONE in that child's range is at risk. Unless everyone is treated at the same time, the chance of reinfestation is high. We don't catch lice & nits from the environment, we catch them from other people. Close physical contact. I'd be checking granny.</p><p></p><p>A strong suggestion - check yourselves out thoroughly, everyone in the family. You too. Then, every time she comes over, check her out too, to make sure she's clear before you let her loose. If you can report that she was already infested when she arrived, first you're keeping yourselves safe, and second, you're making it easier to track down reinfestation sources.</p><p>This isn't to say that granny, for example, was the primary source - trying to find the primary source now is pointless. But she could have given it to granny, and granny could now be reinfecting her.</p><p></p><p>easy child had some really bad infestations. I would get her completely cleared (the first time it took us a long time to recognise it and by then, I had it too) and then easy child would come home from school with another lot. She brought a young friend home, friend was living with her elderly aunt who had never seen nits. Friend's hair was alive with activity and was a regular source of easy child's re-infestation. All I could do was keep treating easy child and keep trying to tell aunty that her niece's hair needed treatment. Finally, friend got her hair treated properly by a professional hairdresser relative. easy child's problems then cleared up.</p><p></p><p>easy child 2/difficult child 2 had similar problems years later, so from past experience I checked through her friend's list. I soon worked out which friend was the source - and wouldn't you know it, it was someone whose mother insisted that nits could not affect her daughters, since they were too educated and wealthy to be atrisk of nits. Talk about nitwit!</p><p></p><p>So the other preventive came into play - keep the kids' hair tied up, back and out of the way. Both my girls did ballet, so I simply did their hair as I would for ballet class - hair tied back into one bunch, the bunch braided, the braid turned into a bun and then a hair net over it all. No self-respecting louse could get through the barrier of hair gel I then applied. OK, you needn't go that far, but if you braid the hair, then at least loop up the braids. Or pin the pony tails into small buns so there aren't loose strands.</p><p></p><p>It does get better as they get older - they're less inclined to hug, cuddle and generally make close physical contact, with their friends at school.</p><p></p><p>You also need to ban dress-ups, ask the school to do the same during an infestation and ask your kids to stay away from dress-ups that are shared around. Especially hats. </p><p></p><p>But washing the bedding, the brushes, the clothing in the pesticide shampoo - not necessary. Nor is boiling necessary. Don't focus so much on the bedding, focus on the head. Using the pesticide everywhere is bad for the environment and only benefits the company which makes it (and tells you to use it so liberally - it means you have to buy more). And be prepared to have to buy fresh supplies every six months or so, the stuff doesn't keep. I suspect this is where rumours of "super-lice" come from - older bottles of pesticide shampoo which no longer work, or rapid reinfestations because not all cases were treated.</p><p></p><p>Our local school had a really good program which involved getting the kids' cooperation as "lice busters". They were supplied with a fine tooth comb, some conditioner and some simple instructions, and on one set night, declared to be "nit night", EVERYONE got treated at home, whether they had symptoms or not. It drastically cut back on reinfestation (assuming an 80% strike rate, that leaves a maximum of 20% of kids who could possibly have nits, instead of a potential 100%.</p><p></p><p>And which pesticide to use? My personal preference - I don't like to use anything on my kids head that has been banned from use in agriculture in the same country. Ti-tree oil is supposed to be a wonderful natural alternative - it's good stuff, but not THAT good. We were dabbing it on a hole in difficult child 3's head while we were on holidays, trying to heal a scab which he kept picking. And one day while examining said hole, I saw lice. They must have been there for several weeks at least, despite the twice daily applications of neat ti-tree oil. It clearly didn't bother them enough to stop the infestation.</p><p></p><p>I hope this can help.</p><p></p><p>Enjoy!</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 65004, member: 1991"] I've well and truly been there done that with nits, lice and the whole darn thing. Plus I studied them at uni when we did parasitology. I KNOW lice and nits. So, added in all my experience of kids who got repeat infestations from their inner-city school - here's some facts to smash those labour-wasting myths. 1) These things ARE species specific, as the vet said. They die if the try to feed off a different species. 2) They NEED blood heat. Even the animals can't survive more than a few hours at room temperature. In a hot summer they will live longer away from the scalp, but they really do need body heat, not merely a degree or two less. 3) Lice, human lice, come in three different forms. Pubic lice are quite different an a different genus (Pthiris pubis) and also look quite different. They CAN be found on other parts of the body, but generally will migrate to their preferred location. The other one, Pediculosis humanis, comes in two sub-species - capitis, which heads for the head, and corporis, which prefers the body hair of other areas. If you get any of these lice on you, they will, as quickly as they can, migrate to their preferred area and begin feeding. 4) Because they cannot survive away from the body for more than a few hours, you really don't have to do much to stop an infestation cycle. Use this knowledge. Put all combs, hats, hair brushes, scrunchies etc in a plastic bag in the freezer overnight. No viable lice or nits will be left alive by morning. Linen and clothing - toss it into the laundry tub. When you eventually get around to washing, do it in COLD water and hang it on the clothes line. A tumble dryer is OK too - the hot setting will probably be too hot, but prolonged cold (below 70 F is best). Just remember, the beasts & eggs die if they're more than a few inches away from a human scalp for more than a few hours. Unless the car is constantly in use, or another child uses the same headrest within half an hour, I doubt the car headrest is the source. 5) To treat an infestation or to check for one - do it in sunlight if you can. I've not done it under UV, it probably would work. Put your own hair in a shower cap (to protect yourself). A long loose strand of hair can be a highway for these critturs, so keep hair tied back. Treatment - use a pesticide shampoo if you know there is an active infestation. Otherwise, wash hair as normal and then put conditioner in the child's hair. And here is where you go searching - have a fine tooth comb, a wide tooth comb, a bowl of water and some towels handy. First get the tangles out with the wide tooth comb. Then use the fine tooth comb to go through the hair AND the scalp, looking for beasties. Rinse the combs in the bowl of water to trap them. The aim of this exercise is to catch lice, dead or alive and remove them. Eggs can be got here too, but step one - leave the eggs and get the lice. Now when you've got all the creatures you think you can, change direction of combing and start again. And again. When you are well-practiced, this should take at least half an hour. If you're a novice, allow an hour to do all three lots of combing. THEN go after the eggs. Again, use sunlight. And remember, you WON'T get all the eggs. And even with strong pesticide shampoo, you won't have killed all the lice or the eggs, only some of them. There is a 'knock'down' effect where they seem to lie down and die, but they're not all dead. If you don't remove them while they're 'out of it', they will come round and evade the comb. The conditioner wil l still trap them, though, and rinsing the combs in the bowl will trap them in the water so you can control where they end up (down the drain or on the garden is fine). And the most important step of all - DO IT AGAIN IN SIX DAYS. You do this in case there were any unkilled eggs you missed which have since hatched. Any hatchlings will still be too sexually immature to lay eggs, so re-doing the treatment now will catch them while immature. If you get any, then repeat the process AGAIN, in another six days. And something else very important - there are many placers a child can get nits (and lice). But once they have them, then EVERYONE in that child's range is at risk. Unless everyone is treated at the same time, the chance of reinfestation is high. We don't catch lice & nits from the environment, we catch them from other people. Close physical contact. I'd be checking granny. A strong suggestion - check yourselves out thoroughly, everyone in the family. You too. Then, every time she comes over, check her out too, to make sure she's clear before you let her loose. If you can report that she was already infested when she arrived, first you're keeping yourselves safe, and second, you're making it easier to track down reinfestation sources. This isn't to say that granny, for example, was the primary source - trying to find the primary source now is pointless. But she could have given it to granny, and granny could now be reinfecting her. easy child had some really bad infestations. I would get her completely cleared (the first time it took us a long time to recognise it and by then, I had it too) and then easy child would come home from school with another lot. She brought a young friend home, friend was living with her elderly aunt who had never seen nits. Friend's hair was alive with activity and was a regular source of easy child's re-infestation. All I could do was keep treating easy child and keep trying to tell aunty that her niece's hair needed treatment. Finally, friend got her hair treated properly by a professional hairdresser relative. easy child's problems then cleared up. easy child 2/difficult child 2 had similar problems years later, so from past experience I checked through her friend's list. I soon worked out which friend was the source - and wouldn't you know it, it was someone whose mother insisted that nits could not affect her daughters, since they were too educated and wealthy to be atrisk of nits. Talk about nitwit! So the other preventive came into play - keep the kids' hair tied up, back and out of the way. Both my girls did ballet, so I simply did their hair as I would for ballet class - hair tied back into one bunch, the bunch braided, the braid turned into a bun and then a hair net over it all. No self-respecting louse could get through the barrier of hair gel I then applied. OK, you needn't go that far, but if you braid the hair, then at least loop up the braids. Or pin the pony tails into small buns so there aren't loose strands. It does get better as they get older - they're less inclined to hug, cuddle and generally make close physical contact, with their friends at school. You also need to ban dress-ups, ask the school to do the same during an infestation and ask your kids to stay away from dress-ups that are shared around. Especially hats. But washing the bedding, the brushes, the clothing in the pesticide shampoo - not necessary. Nor is boiling necessary. Don't focus so much on the bedding, focus on the head. Using the pesticide everywhere is bad for the environment and only benefits the company which makes it (and tells you to use it so liberally - it means you have to buy more). And be prepared to have to buy fresh supplies every six months or so, the stuff doesn't keep. I suspect this is where rumours of "super-lice" come from - older bottles of pesticide shampoo which no longer work, or rapid reinfestations because not all cases were treated. Our local school had a really good program which involved getting the kids' cooperation as "lice busters". They were supplied with a fine tooth comb, some conditioner and some simple instructions, and on one set night, declared to be "nit night", EVERYONE got treated at home, whether they had symptoms or not. It drastically cut back on reinfestation (assuming an 80% strike rate, that leaves a maximum of 20% of kids who could possibly have nits, instead of a potential 100%. And which pesticide to use? My personal preference - I don't like to use anything on my kids head that has been banned from use in agriculture in the same country. Ti-tree oil is supposed to be a wonderful natural alternative - it's good stuff, but not THAT good. We were dabbing it on a hole in difficult child 3's head while we were on holidays, trying to heal a scab which he kept picking. And one day while examining said hole, I saw lice. They must have been there for several weeks at least, despite the twice daily applications of neat ti-tree oil. It clearly didn't bother them enough to stop the infestation. I hope this can help. Enjoy! Marg [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
General Discussions
The Watercooler
Lice help
Top