Lice

[mustardseed2007]

I know there have been threads on this before, but I'm currently in action mode. 

School has had a lice issue for a minute now.They had an outside place come to check for lice and found it on DS but not DD. I made an appointment to go to a place that does nit removal and heat treatment. They also check the whole family as part of a guarantee they have. 

What are your lice tips? 

For reference, DD and DS share a room. Also my head itches right now but I'm thinking that's psychosomatic. Hopefully. 

[186momx]

DD washes her hair in licefree shampoo once a week when it is running around. She also uses tea-tree oil infused shampoo. For your DD I would try to keep her hair pulled up and sprayed in hairspray. I did a lice check on DD last night and just braided her hair in lots of little braids plus it looks cute today.

I washed/dried all hats, scarves, jackets, and bedding when DD actually had lice last year. She doesn't play with stuff animals so I just told her that her stash was off limits. We tossed hair ties and headbands into a zip lock bag and stuffed in the freezer for 48 hours.

My head itched the whole time and anytime she says so and so has lice I automatically start itching. One of her friends at school is battling lice and they had hat day at school Friday which is why I checked last night.

[sandandsea]

Ds brought it home from daycare once. We did the shampoo and combing on everyone for a solid 2 weeks. Others have hired professionals which seems like a good route too. We found it at 9pm and went to a 24 hour store to get stuff because I didn’t want to send them to school untreated knowing they had it.

I heard there was lice at school last week and started spraying both kids Immediately with the fairy tales rosemary repel spray. I don’t know if it works but they haven’t gotten lice and they like the smell.

[mustardseed2007]

I feel bad because a couple months ago they told me they thought DS MIGHT have it but they weren't sure. They didn't send him home but just asked we wash his hair. We did but maybe we weren't religious enough about the follow ups and missed the window? I'm not sure. We haven't washed his hair in the lice shampoo in a while though.

[sdlaura]

We dealt with lice last year and the year before. I always convince myself that I have it, too (one of the times they found one bug on me, but not the other). DD and DS share a room and he has never gotten it from her.

We pay someone to come to our house and check/treat the whole family. No chemicals involved - they just put a lot of conditioner in your hair and brush out every strand. Both times DD had it pretty bad, but they came back for a re-check a week later and had gotten everything the first time. This is my preferred route - once we figure out it's on one of my kids/in my house, I want it gone immediately. Forget shampooing and following up and wondering if it's still in my house!

While they're doing that, I run around the house lint-rolling furniture, washing bedding, and vacuuming. It's nice to have the person there because they can give you all the instructions and remind you of things to wash/treat. All throw pillows/stuffed animals/comforters that we don't need immediately go in garbage bags for a couple days.

Sorry you're dealing with this - it is no fun!

[rere]

I did the Rid treatment as directed, but also used the LiceFree products periodically for a over a month. They were less harsh and very easy to put in every once and a while in case there were any strays. I also bought a stainless steel comb to go through her hair. I washed all bedding, replaced the pillows, vacuumed the mattress and couches with their pillows. I also treated everyone with the LiceFree just in case. My head itched too.

I was probably over the top, but there was a mom recently who had 9 (WOW) kids who just kept passing it around for months. I wasn't taking any chances, so I was throwing everything at it.

[mrsGreeko]

We’ve dealt with lice a few times. One time was super fun when my middle DD passed it on to me. Yay. That was so super fun.

Anyway, I now have a whole lice protocol that I use since Rid/Nix and other pesticides are generally not useful anymore as almost all lice is resistant these days. Before I did this I really struggled with getting completely rid of the lice. Once I started this it’s a lot easier to get rid of.

Day 1: buy all the licefreee spray (yes that’s 3 e’s) you can get your hands on. I buy it at Walgreens and amazon. I now keep a couple bottles always because my Walgreens runs out regularly. It’s basically super concentrated salt water.

Spray the infested kid’s head with the spray and use a good nit comb (I actually have one I ordered from England, but I think the fairy tales one is a close enough match, which you can get at Ulta I think) to go through every section of their hair very carefully, wiping the comb with paper towels after each swipe. Have them sit on a towel while you do this and have them watch a movie. If no one else in the house is infested then just spray everyone else’s heads with the spray and let dry. No need to comb everyone out, but I would spray just to make sure you kill anything you missed seeing. Then I wash all the infested kid’s clothes that I can on hot (and the clothes I was wearing to comb them out), change their bedding and wash and dry on hot. Vaccuum the area that you combed them out. Bag any stuffed animals they’ve been sleeping with in garbage bags and tie tightly and leave them somewhere inaccessible for 3 weeks. Boil all brushes and combs they’ve used along with the nit comb.

Day 2-6: have them wear their hair tightly braided or in a high pony and tell them to keep their heads away from others. The spray is super effective, but mainly you don’t want them catching it from someone else (since probably there are people in the class who don’t know they have it yet)

Day 7: spray the licefreee spray again on everyone in the family. Nit comb again the infested person(s). Wash clothes and bedding on hot one more time. Boil brushes and combs again.

Day 8-13: repeat of day 2-6

Day 14: spray just the infested person(s) heads with the spray. No need to comb out this time and no need to do the laundry and boiling. This is just to make absolutely sure you go everything.

After 3 weeks return stuffed animals from lice jail.

Also, my girls shared brushes and neither one got it when the other had it. I was the only lucky one to catch it from another family member.

And one of my girls caught it when using the fairy tales lice prevention shampoo, conditioner, and daily conditioning spray so we stopped using those since they obviously don’t work.

Also, at any given time in any given classroom they estimate there are 3-4 cases of lice. And now that most are pesticide resistant most parents really struggle to get rid of it because the pesticides don’t work and the lice don’t die.

ETA: for awhile I checked their heads every Saturday because I was really unhappy to discover lice one of the times on a Monday and when it takes 2-3 hours to comb out I didn’t have the desire to ever again have to do that again in a weeknight! I also decreed that they wear their hair in braids or ponytails only to go to school for like a full year. They hated me for that, but meh. My DS hasn’t gotten it yet, but frankly he’d be easier to deal with because I could buzz his head at home if I wanted and at least combing him out wouldn’t take more than 30 minutes as opposed to the 2-3 hours on my girls with long thick hair.

[sdlaura]

Wow mrsGreeko that is quite the regimen! I much prefer the 3-hours and 100% done option (though it is expensive)! I did find that any lice treatment, including a person coming to your house, can be tax free through submitting to your FSA.

[mrsGreeko]

Jan 27, 2020 14:41:20 GMT -5 sdlaura said:

Wow mrsGreeko that is quite the regimen! I much prefer the 3-hours and 100% done option (though it is expensive)! I did find that any lice treatment, including a person coming to your house, can be tax free through submitting to your FSA.

I’m too cheap to hire it out. . But, it’s really not that bad. The lice and nits are actually all dead after spraying the first time, I just repeat each week to make 100% sure that they are dead and they don’t get re-infected by whomever in the class doesn’t know they have it yet. It takes about a month before an infestation is generally noticeable. So people will walk around spreading it for about a month before they know they have it. And I treat everyone in the hose to make sure no one has an early infestation that I didn’t know about.

[mustardseed2007]

I think the repeat is the thing I didn't follow through on well enough. Partially because I looked closely at his head and I didn't see it, but now I'm assuming that the few flecks I saw in his head that I was sure was dandruff was actually nits. He also was NOT cooperative about having us look at his hair. This time there wasn't any doubt because I saw two live bugs in his hair right off. OMG.

We did end up going to a clinic that's right by my house. They did a heat treatment, put some oil stuff in his hair and then combed his hair out very very thoroughly. DS was chill at first but eventually he had enough and was crying and pounding the arm rests (didn't hit the clinician though. I'm pretty sure if we'd been at home we would have had to hold him down if we had to do that ourselves).

I'm going to check out that spray. They did sell us a spray in the clinic but it's more of a preventative.

Fingers crossed this did it. I was so glad to hear you can bag up the stuffed animals, the clinic told us the same thing. We put a few choice ones through the dryer on high heat but I did NOT want to do all of them.

[keh2oblue]

It’s a lot of work, but my DD (11) has had it a couple times. You just need a good comb (we use fairy tales) and patience to comb through each section of hair. Repeat daily until gone.

Vacuum carpet, wash/dry bedding in high heat, stuffed animals/hair ties/brushes/etc go into garbage bag for a couple weeks.

[k3am]

DD had lice last year. I treated with Rid or Nix or whatever over the counter stuff I found and thought I'd done pretty well, but didn't trust DH to check my hair. We ended up having a service come out, and the lady said I had done a great job... at getting the lice out. But she found like 20 nits still in DD's hair and a hanful in DS's.

Lots of laundry, vacuuming, and bagging that you've seen here.

We combed daily after that, then every other day, then once a week, then stopped. We have a preventative spray that we use and I am adamant that DD's hair is in a ponytail daily for school.

A friend's house has had lice 3 times in the last two months that I know about. And she still does stuff like show up with hair chalk and other fun ways for kids to potentially spread lice.

[mommyatty]

Jan 28, 2020 13:50:01 GMT -5 k3am said:

A friend's house has had lice 3 times in the last two months that I know about. And she still does stuff like show up with hair chalk and other fun ways for kids to potentially spread lice.

OMG. I would not be able to stop myself from saying something borderline snotty, like “Oh gosh, we don’t allow our kids to share anything that touches another child’s hair. Lice is just such a concern.” But then I’m the crazy person who won’t let my hard shell suitcases touch soft objects in hotel rooms because bedbugs scare the shit out of me. Little insects that feed off humans are not okay with me.

[186momx]

One of DD's school friends family has been battling lice of months and can't seem to get a rid of it (passing it back and forth between girls). She wants DD to have a sleepover at her house or do a sleepover at our house and I keep coming up with excuses on why DD can't host or go. The biggest reason is I don't want to deal with the possibility of lice but don't want to use that as the reason.

[k3am]

186momx, I flat out rejected a sleepover we'd already committed to with that family. "Sorry, but I'm still traumatized from when we had lice. Let's give it a few weeks."

But then again.. I found out about their second time having lice while their kid was already sleeping over at our house...and then they subsequently had the third time (different kid) a few weeks later. I would have turned that down with no regrets if I'd known they'd had another outbreak.

It took me an entire day to clean my house, $400 for professional treatment, AND weeks of combing. I don't care whose feelings I hurt, I'm not voluntarily signing up for that again.

[rere]

Jan 28, 2020 13:55:23 GMT -5 mommyatty said:

Jan 28, 2020 13:50:01 GMT -5 k3am said:

A friend's house has had lice 3 times in the last two months that I know about. And she still does stuff like show up with hair chalk and other fun ways for kids to potentially spread lice.

OMG. I would not be able to stop myself from saying something borderline snotty, like “Oh gosh, we don’t allow our kids to share anything that touches another child’s hair. Lice is just such a concern.” But then I’m the crazy person who won’t let my hard shell suitcases touch soft objects in hotel rooms because bedbugs scare the shit out of me. Little insects that feed off humans are not okay with me.

I have a definite phobia of bugs that prey on humans.  Lice and bedbugs top the list.  I was in a hotel in Nashville and when we got there, someone showed me a picture of a bug they found.  I had brought my own pillow and blanket. Before we left, I checked both and found a bedbug on the blanket.  Needless to say, I threw them both out.  I caught the bedbug in a waterbottle and took it to the front desk.  They denied it was a bed bug.  I told them I work at the health department and I know damn well what a bed bug looks like (that is actually the environmental department, but whatev) .   I made probably the biggest scene I have ever made in public to the point I told them I would sit across the road with a sign about the bed bugs, because I didn't have anything else going on and it was Sunday.  We left and I called the health department there and filled a report and called their corporate and eventually got my money back.  

I always put my suitcase on the desk, along with my shoes and check the rooms with a flashlight. 

It doesn't help that these things cost $$$$$$.   Bedbugs can cost thousands to get rid of them and I was out at least $300 with the lice without a professional.  That was many bottles of treatment at $20 a bottle and I ended up throwing out all of the bed pillows, brushes, and hair ties and starting over.  

 

[mrsGreeko]

I use this thing when I have psychosomatic lice: www.walgreens.com/store/c/liceguard-robi-comb-electronic-lice-comb/ID=prod9618-product

Makes me feel better. Especially since when DD2 actually did give it to me, DH “checked” my head and declared me lice free. Hahahah. A few hours later a freaking lice crawled down my forehead (screams!). Anyway, if my head feels itchy like after reading threads like this I run it through my hair and feel better. It’s very effective on psychosomatic lice, moderately effective on actual lice.

Also, I won’t tell people my kid’s have lice any more (also we haven’t dealt with it again since the year of much lice) because when I did last time the moms that I told told their kids to stay away from mine. . I tried being nice and giving them a heads up to check their kids, but then they hurt my kids so nope on doing that again.

[mustardseed2007]

Curious how much is it where you live per person to get lice professionally removed from your head?

We paid 156 dollars for the single treatment and for head checks on each member of the household (4 people including the head that was getting treated). The treatment was done at their storefront and they gave us instructions on what to do with our house and belongings.

400 dollars is quite a bit more but we're in Texas not Cali. For 400 dollars....I miiight have done it myself? Seeing how thorough they were though...I would probably not have been that effective, at least on the first go round without having seen someone really get in there and do every single section etc.

[k3am]

mustardseed2007, we paid for an in-home treatment for both kids along with head checks for DH, me, and two of the neighbor kids since they constantly play together. I would have felt bad if we gave it to them, and even worse if we'd given it to them, got rid of it, and then got it back. I think it was like $150/kid being treated ($300), plus we paid per head checked and then bought their special kit (comb/treatment spray/prevention spray). We tipped the lady as well.

Having seen a pro do it was very, very helpful. If I had been the only one to do it, all of those nits I missed would have come back. I also don't think my kids would ever sit as still for me as they did for her.

[sdlaura]

k3am I also make my daughter wear her hair in a ponytail everyday. And mommyatty my suitcase also doesn't touch the floor or bed during travel!

[mustardseed2007]

Jan 28, 2020 16:11:52 GMT -5 k3am said:

mustardseed2007 , we paid for an in-home treatment for both kids along with head checks for DH, me, and two of the neighbor kids since they constantly play together. I would have felt bad if we gave it to them, and even worse if we'd given it to them, got rid of it, and then got it back. I think it was like $150/kid being treated ($300), plus we paid per head checked and then bought their special kit (comb/treatment spray/prevention spray). We tipped the lady as well.

Having seen a pro do it was very, very helpful. If I had been the only one to do it, all of those nits I missed would have come back. I also don't think my kids would ever sit as still for me as they did for her.

I forgot about the tip! I did tip 20% on top of that. They had a sign saying tips were welcome. 

The only way it could have really been a better experience was if they did come to our house. That's pretty nifty. 

[sdlaura]

mustardseed2007 it is really nice to have them come to your house. Especially since I have a toddler and I could clean stuff while they worked. They came at 7 am one day so I was still able to get to work and the kids to school at a decent hour. They charged by the minute. The first time I think it was a couple hundred bucks and then the second time I found lice on my DD right after we had hosted Thanksgiving, so I invited everyone who had been at our house for Thanksgiving to come back over and get checked. That was an expensive day! But I did have money in my FSA so at least I could put it through that.

[twinmomma]

We just got an email that we have it running rampant at school. Ugghhh wish us luck that my two girls with hair to their butts make it through unscathed.

[dixeedeluxe]

We also paid a professional. I watched her every move and she taught me SO MUCH! I am not at all scared anymore. I know what I'm looking for. We do the recommended weekly comb-outs with the Terminator lice comb. The person who treated us is also very willing to help if I find something questionable.

My kids were FREAKED OUT when they had it. They are totally fine with the comb-outs because they do not ever want to have live bugs again.

In my retirement, my dream is to open a lice clinic. I paid $350 for the three of us. As we sat there, she got so many calls that I calculated her income just from that day to be well over $2,000.

[mustardseed2007]

Jan 31, 2020 11:11:29 GMT -5 dixeedeluxe said:

We also paid a professional. I watched her every move and she taught me SO MUCH! I am not at all scared anymore. I know what I'm looking for. We do the recommended weekly comb-outs with the Terminator lice comb. The person who treated us is also very willing to help if I find something questionable.

My kids were FREAKED OUT when they had it. They are totally fine with the comb-outs because they do not ever want to have live bugs again.

In my retirement, my dream is to open a lice clinic. I paid $350 for the three of us. As we sat there, she got so many calls that I calculated her income just from that day to be well over $2,000.

Did you all have lice or did some of you just get checked and some of you had it. 

I just 100% agree that I could never have done a good enough job of it without watching someone do it first. There's also the element that my kid will sit better for a stranger than they will for me. DS did not sit overly well. 

I've had the same thought about being a neuhaus tutor. At its peak, we paid ours sometimes over 800 dollars per month. And we were one of probably 10 or 12 clients she had. 

[dixeedeluxe]

mustardseed2007, my kids both had bugs at every live stage and nits, but I had nothing. I saw the bugs on my older kid, but had no idea my younger kid also had them. I was combing out with a metal comb (not the Terminator) and looking at her head with a flashlight and did not see them.