Lice

[Skysue]

Okay here goes:

My DD went to a friends house on Friday the 21st for a birthday party. She was there for 2 hours, I got a call from the Mother today that on the 24th she discovered her oldest child has lice. She thinks she got it from a friend that slept over.

Should I worry about my DD, I checked her hair this morning and don't see anything. Advice please:

[Fun&care]

Hi there...new to the forum but just went through this with my son. Check your DDs hair, especially behind the ears and at the nape. If you find any living lice, they will resemble sesame seeds, and/or eggs they are tiny white specs that are glued to the hair, usually close to the scalp. If you find anything at all go to the drugstore and treat her hair with lice shampoo, then you will need to send out a letter to all parents and to her school ( if she goes). The most important part though, is even with treatment to manually remove any eggs. You will have to do this for 2 weeks at least, check and remove lice and eggs. Good luck!

[apples and bananas]

I'm itchy just reading this.

I would treat her anyways and keep your eyes open for anything crawling around up there.

[gramma]

Hi there...new to the forum but just went through this with my son. Check your DDs hair, especially behind the ears and at the nape. If you find any living lice, they will resemble sesame seeds, and/or eggs they are tiny white specs that are glued to the hair, usually close to the scalp. If you find anything at all go to the drugstore and treat her hair with lice shampoo, then you will need to send out a letter to all parents and to her school ( if she goes). The most important part though, is even with treatment to manually remove any eggs. You will have to do this for 2 weeks at least, check and remove lice and eggs. Good luck!

i agree, continue checking regularly because it takes some time to become obvious. if you do find live lice or eggs you must remove the eggs. the best way to do that is to buy the "Licemeister" comb (get it at shoppers) its about 20 dollars but worth the investment. wet the hair and put cream rinse or condition in the hair and leave it in and use the comb. doing it this way eliminates the pain from the tight teeth on the comb pulling hair. the comb that come with the shampoo is not great. in all honesty unless you have alot of live lice i wouldnt wast my money on the shampoo. In my experience it doesnt kill eggs and it doesnt even kill all live ones. removing them all by hand is the best way. my daughter got it after a sleepover years ago and had hair down to her waist. we spend 3 hours twice a day for 2 weeks removing eggs from her hair. its impossible to get them all the first time. good luck

[Spixie33]

Lice are horrendous so I would treat her as soon as possible just to be safe because the work involved once it becomes a full blown lice issue is a nightmare. All the washing of clothes, toys, bedding, the constant shampooing and combing.....ahhhhh! I never want to go through it again.

I would treat her with the shampoo and use the little nit comb for a few days every night just to make sure there are no eggs. You don't want anything that was there to hatch anything.

Chances are she probably didn't catch anything but better to be safe than sorry and have it spread through your house.

[Crayola kiddies]

Ok I just had this go through my daycare in November ..... Keep checking your daughters head several times a day for the next week or so ..... Lice don't jump so she would have to have had head to head contact or put her head on a surface where an adult lice was. An adult lice can live off the body for 2 days only. I would not recommend treating her with the lice shampoo as it is seriously toxic. If she has an adult lice and it lays eggs it takes 10 days for the egg to hatch. The egg is not able to be just flicked off it is stuck to the strand of hair. This is why you need a "fine" tooth comb or "lice" comb, and you have to go through her whole head and then do a second treatment 10 days later ( or what the directions of the particular treatment is that you buy) keep checking her and keep your fingers crossed that you don't find anything. If you do and she is school age you should notify the school ( even though she hasnt been at school since contracting them) but they do not exclude from school any more and they no longer do random head checks. Wash all of your linens in hot water (I have a sanitize option on my washer) and bag for two weeks anything that can't be washed such as stuffed animals , dolls, ect. And vacuum repeatedly..... Hope this helps

[Skysue]

Thanks I haven't seen anything yet and know she wasn't in close contact to the older child. I also put a heck of a lot of spray in conditioner on her hair 15 minutes before she went to the party as she has very curly hair that tends to get it quite tangled. I put her hair in braids as well. I just read they don't like product in hair and tend to avoid heads like that.

Omg has my skin and head been crawling since the phone rang thus morning.

[Other Mummy]

Now I know nobody likes lice. In fact, most people with recoil in horror. But I am absoultely TERRIFIED of the buggers. If I ever found a nit or bug in my child's hair I would seriously start to hyperventilate!

I would probably invest in a lice comb as well. Just in case. But I would not treat hair with any chemicals unless I was certain that my child had lice.

I remember a woman in the GTA started her own company, making house calls to rid families and their homes of lice. I think she was called..."the Lice Lady". I'm gonna look her up.

[Skysue]

http://www.ehow.com/how_2059855_prevent-head-lice.html

I'm going to start doing this as a preventative measure.

[playfelt]

If you wash the hair daily and use the nit comb - yes get the nitmeister and have it on hand. A good practice especially with girls anyways is to wash the hair, apply conditioner so it stay slippery, comb with the nit comb and then rinse out conditioner. No sense in letting a problem get started and find out after the fact. Not that you have to get paranoid and do it daily but a good weekly comb out works wonders. My kids had really flaky hair due to eczema and the nit comb helped for that too as it got the stuff at the scalp and pulled it out.

Don't use the medicated soaps unless you find live lice as it is toxic. Some evidence that using tea tree oil with shampoos helps keep lice uninterested.

You will get lice notices 2-3 times a year once child is in school and more often for some schools and that is only the parents that actually tell the school - hence the shampoo and nit comb method of prevention.

[Bookworm]

If you don't want to use lice shampoo, I believe putting a few drops of tea tree oil in your shampoo is a good way to get rid of them.
I unfortunately got lice as a teenager from my cousin and they didn't even tell my parents right away that their daughter had it.
Anyways, long story short. I used tea tree oil in my shampoo and it got rid of the lice. Doing it as a preventative measure shouldn't hurt.

[Inspired by Reggio]

The bottles of lice treatment shampoo have very clear warnings NOT to use as a preventative measure only for full blown infestations ... they are highly toxic you do not want to apply that to your skin just as a precaution and if you DO and they do not have lice yet you risk if you DO get them having them be 'resistant' to the treatment!

I second or third the suggestion of using a TEATREE oil as a preventative measure ... I have used this weekly on my hair for all the decades I have been in the field and we have never had lice come through our home despite having had it in centre year after year and being 'exposed' to it ... but even Teatree oil while 'natural' is still harsh plant do not use it more than 'necessary' to prevent lice or as a treatment for it ... aka I would not use it daily preventative cause the plant has been shown to be hard on the kidney's when constantly exposed to it :(

[Crayola kiddies]

Yes tea tree oil is a good preventative....a few drops in your shampoo will likely keep them away ....

[Mamma_Mia]

I had lice a few times as a child (playing with the stray animals didn't help and I had super long hair). It's not fun..