Lice help

[Shari]

Well, last week I was 90% certain we didn't have lice in our house anymore, if we ever did, and now I'm 99% certain. Now its just a matter of getting mom to accept it and mom and grandma to treat easy child 2 so she really does get rid of them...
Mom would never go for it, but this 2-house kinda thing could really be used to her advantage to get rid of these things. Now that we're sure our house is free, we could treat easy child 2 and keep her with us for several days, while mom and grandma did the same.
(But that hot place down south will freeze over solid before that ever happens.)
I just hope we don't have to do all this again.
Thanks for all the suggestions and help. I've definitely learned a lot.

 

[susiestar]

After our last bout of lice, which was HORRIBLE, I looked for a solution that was easier on my kids and myself. I, lucky me, am very allergic to the pesticide in the lice treatements. And of course this means that I am the one who has to treat all lice bearing children.

I discovered an organic pesticide called NEEM oil. It is very thick and has a strong odor. I mix a teaspoon of Neem oil with shampoo and wash the child's hair (and this is for J's very thick long hair). I let it sit 30 minutes, rinse, put conditioner on and use the lice comb.

This stuff WORKS!!!!!!! On the second night we had very few nits.

This stuff is used as an organic pesticide, sprayed over crops. It is what is in some of the expensive products advertised on the internet.

It prevents the nits from maturing. I comb every night for 14 days when they bring home lice. But with this, it is more of a pleasureable hair comb for my kids.

It was cheaper for a bottle of the oil straight off of ebay than for the traditional lice treatment. And the bottle will last us a long time because we don't need to use a lot.

Susie

 

[dreamer]

we used to do the combing, like I said above, either in the tub, or as a chain, with each of us combing the person in front of them, often with a movie on the TV to entertain us. Like I also said, ouch, I did get blisters from so much combing and becuz of my symptoms of my illness, it was a major chore for me, quite difficult. BUT me and the kids found we kind of missed that time together once we no longer HAD to do such intense combing with each other. It DID provide some good bonding time, once we found a way to handle the tangle problems.

 

[Shari]

Well, mom was all about not sending easy child 2 to our house tonight, however, as I suspected, we can forget keeping her for any period of time to allow them to quarantine her space at their homes. She treated easy child 2 again last night and was still finding adult lice, as well as "hundreds of nits". This concerns me...She was treated a week ago...?
She's not keeping her home from school because she's afraid she'll miss too much school. :slap: I suggested treating or even just combing every night, and she adamanatly will not, the directions on the box say every 7-10 days. :rolleyes:
However, she couldn't argue with the info I gave her about pesticides that will kill them, life span, hatch time, etc, so she had to admit it was fine for her to come for the weekend.
Now I just have to keep re-doing this...how grand.

 

[Marguerite]

The nits will never wash away. If she's still finding "hundreds of nits" it's either a reinfestation, or she hasn't removed all the old ones. And she can't count on old, treated nits to not be viable - I made that mistake early on. You HAVE to comb them out and remove them to be sure.

Nits will NEVER wash out of their own accord - they are glued onto the hair shaft with something very unique. Scientists and manufacturing companies have been trying to crack that formula for years, because if they can find either a manufactured version of the glue, or a solvent for the glue, either will sell a million. Even Supaglue will dissolve in acetone, but this glue won't. And that's from husband - a professional expert in chemicals and glues. if the nits are not manually removed, they will stay there until they grow out far enough to be removed on her next trim - several years. Of course, they won't be viable past a few weeks, or SUCCESSFUL killing with pesticide - whichever comes first.

Sounds to me like her mother is putting the chemical treatment through and not doing the full comb-through properly, just combing once through to see if she's got any, then rinsing out. A sure way to keep an infestation going... because of course, the bottle won't tell her to change direction and comb through again. Why should they? The more reinfestations, the more treatment they sell.

How often does she visit you? Because if it's weekly, you could manage to remove them during her visits to you. A repeat treatment in 7 days would show some half-grown lice, but shouldn't show full adults & loads of eggs, unless she's picked up another load. Which sounds like is what's happening.

So why does the mother blame you? And why isn't the school excluding her? In Australia the kid would be banned until all eggs, dead or otherwise, have been removed.

She's 5. It's an age where they make a lot of close physical contact with their friends. They have dress-ups in the classroom (and I bet her mother hasn't notified the school, or asked them to keep her away from dress-ups - that would alert the school and maybe insist on her being excluded).

Does she have an aide? If so, then there's a chance of the school maybe noticing sooner and doing something, unless her aide is short-haired.

At 5, little girls hug their best friends. Mothers let their little girls wear their hair out, or in cute little pigtails. Kids get their heads really close together.

Unless this is dealt with properly, this is going to be an ongoing problem until wither the main vector is found and treated, or until she gets older and there's less contact (about 8).

All you can do is be vigilant, and patient. Check her on arrival and if the mother has recently treated her hair, then do it again but without chemicals, just use conditioner and see if you can trap or remove any lice or eggs. At the risk of grossing you out, you can tell if an egg is live or not by seeing if it will crack between your nails. And sorry, you need to know. If she arrives with live eggs, then she is bringing the problem into your home, not catching it there.

What a tangle! I feel for you, trying to handle this one with diplomacy.

Marg

 

[WhymeMom?]

It used to be if the school knew they wouldn't let you come unless you could show proof of treatment or the nurse would have to check heads.....Can you notify the school so they would either check her or keep her out of school....that may make mom more vigilant on the treatment.....

 

[Shari]

She is coming tonight. I am purchasing a bottle of the treatment, and if I find any nits, I will treat her, remove everything I can and notify the school on Monday. While I sympathize with mom that its a pain and hard to remove every nit, its also selfish to put other families at risk by sending her with an active infestation. She knows there's a "no nit" policy, she just said that's impossible, so she was sending her anyway. Perhaps if the school knows and enforces it (which they will if they find nits), mom might have a little incentive to work at this a little harder.
I was at my favorite little second-hand store yesterday and found the cutest little homemade wood doll cradle for $5 which I purchsed for easy child 2 and difficult child 2 (they love to play "house" and have a baby doll that cries and coos and all that jazz). Unfortunately, the doll is one of the items I couldn't wash, so she's still bagged up. How long til I can let her out? (and I think I'm going to ask if her toys at mom's and grandma's have been bagged - neither has mentioned doing it)

 

[Shari]

Hi all.

I will probably burn in the southern fires for even posting this, but I jsut can't seem to help myself.

Now keep in mind, this isn't just about lice or the "stigma" that goes with it...this is about an adult difficult child who has taken personal attacks with every ounce of ammo she could for the past 5 years. We have easy child 2 one night a week and every other weekend thru the school year. For 2 years we took easy child 2 and her horse to the arena thru the warm months and rode just about every week she was here. We met her mom one night and she called the next day hammering me because I did not bath easy child 2 well enough, she "stunk like horse" (this from a woman who rode horses until husband left her - then never touched them again). My dog cause easy child 2 too much anguish in allergies because I don't vacuum enough (we have one indoor dog, she has 3 plus 2 cats). The one night a week we have her is "too hard for her" and makes her too tired to make it thru the entire rest of the school week, no matter what night its on (even tho when she "stays at mom's", mom ships her to grandma's at 8:30 or so most of the time...) Child support was late 3 times by no more than 15 days - once after husband's surgery in November, after my dad died in March, and after husband's surgery in May. She garnished (which bit her in the butt cause they've been garnishing for 8 weeks now and she still hasn't seen a dime - BUT NOT OUR PROBLEM!! I LIKE THIS GARNISH THING!) And this whole lice thing...which she has called me repeatedly and told me that "I need to clean or vacuum or spray my house or something, and easy child 2's NOT to touch my mangey cats (that cant carry human lice)..."
easy child 2's friend got off accidentally at her mom's house tonight. She called me to see if I'd take her friend home. I was a ways from getting there, so she ended up having grandma take the friend home. When I picked easy child up, she popped in the car and said "mom couldn't take my friend home cause mom's boyfriend is doing her hair". I said "boyfriend styles hair?" She said "Oh, no, he's combing it like mine. Mom's got lice, too."
Oh sweet justice.
Miss "Not-in-my-house,-its-from-YOU-cause-YOU-are-so-DIRTY" has it.
And she even said easy child has only slept there 3 nights this whole summer...
I don't even care if we all get it, too. I'll burn in the southern fires for this, I'm sure, but hey.
Sorry. Let the flame throwing begin.
(But I bet mom starts doing more than washing sheets, too)

 

[WhymeMom?]

Ah.....poetic justice!!!!

 

[Marguerite]

Oh, classic! What did I say? Oh, I do so love being right!

About the doll - if it's been below 90F for a week, or below 80F for several days, or below 65-70F for 1-2 days, then I would guarantee no problems. If it's been less, I would still be fairly sure. But a bagged doll can go in the freezer for a few hours, just to make certain.

The bag won't do a thing to suffocate lice, fleas or anything else. All it does is confine them. It's the lower-than-body-heat temperature (plus lack of food) which kills the lice.

Like I said, sheets on the cold laundry floor for a week - no worries!

If you're still unsure, do some Googling on Pediculosis humanis life cycles and living requirements.

It's a bit like the panic over HIV - it's a lot harder to catch than people thought. People used to think you could catch HIV from sharing the same cup, even if it had been through the dishwasher. It's really difficult to convince people that HIV is really a very fragile virus, it needs viable body fluids to survive.
Some nasty viruses (such as colds, influenza, smallpox) can survive almost as dry dust (smallpox can survive as dust) but not HIV. Hep C is a bit tougher, it can survive for longer on a discarded needle, but unless the needle was sued within the previous few hours, HIV in it will not be viable.

We think about viruses the way we do about catching colds - someone with a cold touches their nose, then touches a cup, and the next person to touch that cup and then touch THEIR nose, has just been inoculated. It's now up to their immune system to fight it off.

We tend to think about nits in the same way - or maybe, like catching fleas off a dog. I used to HATE fleas in the house when I was a kid because getting rid of them was so difficult. One flea could make my life a misery. My mother taught me to stand in a full bathtub while I undressed - any fleas were likely to fall off and get trapped in the water, from where I could catch them and dispose of them nastily. And if I failed to catch the flea, it would sit somewhere in the carpet overnight and find me in the morning.

Not so nits. That's why they wore wigs in the 18 Century - so when they took their wigs off overnight (they were often shaved underneath) then any lice or eggs would die overnight, while the wig cooled on the wig stand. Only those who could afford it wore decent wigs, so nits & lice THUS became associated as a condition of the poor and scungy.

Oh, but I'm so amused by the mother having nits. Has anyone checked grandma yet? Because if she's been minding easy child 2 even more than darling mama has...

Marg