posted on October 5, 2001 11:01:55 AM
My little girl has such a severe case of headlice that I am now forced to shave her head. She's been through 3 lice treatments and is still infested. I've used rid, nixx, and clear on her head. The rid caused her hair to start falling out, so she's already growing bald anyway. It's going to be so weird seeing her completely hairless though.
She's got nits on top of nits on her scalp and hair. And still has live lice crawling around. It's so yucky. I discovered the lice about a week ago. I barely parted her hair and they were just all over. They move fast, but there were so many you could see lice everywhere.
My head's been itching too and I just got back from the dr's. I have my yearly case of dandriff. I've never been so happy to hear I have dandriff. I usually curse each fall because I always have to pick up some head n shoulders. It's a blessing now.
What amazes me is how fast she got infected. The school nurses just checked all the kid's hair a couple wks ago because of all the cases of head lice and she checked out clean. I didn't figure she would get it. My poor mom is having to clean all the bedding because I was visiting her when they were found.
Has anyone else here had to deal with these things, and if so how did you get rid of them?? Advice much appreciated.
posted on October 5, 2001 11:07:52 AM
Watch out Tiggess, it's a trick. Next thing ya know she will ask you to pierce her eyebrows, tattoo her back, and buy her a leather jacket.
posted on October 5, 2001 11:08:47 AM
I feel for you. When my kids were little, my youngest had lice, came home from school with it. Had to 'RID' the whole house, bag up all stuffed toys, clean mattresses, vacuum all the corners of the house.
I used the RID on my daughter, and still there were eggs or nits. So what I did, and she was hating it, is take her outside into sunlight, and pick every single one out of her head.(Those combs they give with the kit are useless) Took hours, but got them all. Ack it was awful. Took her to school, before they can go back the nurse has to check them, she was ok, no lice or eggs.
Its really hard to do, but maybe you might want to try it, before shaving, though if they are that bad, there may be no other alternative
Doesn't the dr's have prescription type med for lice?
posted on October 5, 2001 11:09:14 AM
Get yourself a big bottle of Olive Oil or Vegetable Oil/ or even a jar of vaseline---and a couple of shower caps.
Completely coat the hair from scalp to tip and put the shower cap on--leave for 12 hours..--get a fine toothed nit comb or flea comb and after 12 hours comb the hair. The nits will slide off and all the live lice will have suffocated. 12 hours is probably longer than you need-
This works great---there are strains of lice that cannot be killed with some of the 'toxic' potions that you can buy.
To insure that you got all the nits--repeat in 7-10 days
posted on October 5, 2001 11:21:54 AM I feel for your daughter. I'm not sure what age she is, but that can't be comfortable with the lice and a shaved head isn't exactly the kind of thing an elementary student (guessing on that) would opt for.
My wife was constantly telling me about having to call the school nurse to check kids out for head lice when she was teaching the younger kids 1st - 3rd graders.
When she gets home I'll pick her head (pun intended) for some suggestions.
posted on October 5, 2001 11:27:03 AM
---added bonus of using the Oil Suffocation Method is that even though you end having to wash your hair a few times to get all the oil out---it is incredibly soft and shiny afterwards
posted on October 5, 2001 11:27:33 AM
A couple of years ago my daughter and I BOTH had lice. We both had to be medicated twice.
The advice you've gotten is right on.
1. Lay her in the bright sun and hand pick the eggs. It took us several days to get them all. The combs, all of them, are useless. Fingernails are what you need.
2. Get that lice spray and use it on the couch, carpet, mattress, everything. Yours too. Everywhere she's been.
3. Wash all the bedding in HOT water.
4. Bag (airtight) for 2 weeks all those cloth toys, stuffed thingees, everthing that might hide lice. Bag the pillows too.
5. Buy new brushes.
I'm getting itchy just thinking about it. If you've never had lice, I'm telling you, the itching will drive you insane.
posted on October 5, 2001 11:33:17 AM
She's 5. She's only been going to school for 5 wks and already gets headlice!
When I went to school, we rarely heard of anyone getting lice. Now ticks...that's another thing... We were always getting ticks plucked off kids' heads back then. I think I prefer the ticks, they're easier to get rid of at least. And they never itched...if the teachers didn't check every now and then, no one would know they were there.
She's almost bald now from the RID I put on her hair. She got all sad from losing her hair and started crying saying, "Now I'm a boy." My mom was trying to make her feel better. At first it looked like this one model's hairdo and didn't look so bad, but it kept falling out. Then a few hours later she was so swelled and had hives all over her we had to take her to the e.r. She's allergic to RID. By the time we got her to the e.r. she was having problems breathing and they had to give her a shot and watch her until she started breathing normal again.
ty for the idea zazzie, I'll try that before I shave it to see if that works. She does have a little hair left...
posted on October 5, 2001 11:33:39 AM
You don't actually have to WASH everything in HOT WATER--most things you can't anyways.
It is HEAT that will kill the lice--so a Hot Dryer for 20 minutes will do the trick.
posted on October 5, 2001 11:52:59 AM
My son was 3 when the Daycare he had been attending for 6 weeks called and told me he had lice ( A kid there was on his 3rd case of it). I had only heard of it before, never been around it at all. I called the Dr.'s office and they called in a prescription for a lindane shampoo. It worked the first time( we followed up the next day just to make sure). We didn't have to pick the nits out, it worked so fast. GOOD LUCK!!
posted on October 5, 2001 12:21:34 PM
You can't just treat the child, you must treat the house. There are sprays that you must use on furniture. Put all her stuffed toys in a plastic bag, add a little spray, then tie the bag up tight and leave that way for days. Wash all bedding, hot water, and spray the mattress.
Don't forget to treat the carpet, your car seats, and ANYTHING else her head has touched. Treat her hair again, treat the house, and go to a hotel for the weekend.
Then pick, pick, pick the nits. Fingernails work best. For months, you will be checking her hair and occasionally, even weeks later, you will find one. Anytime in the future you find a nit, treat the hair again.
posted on October 5, 2001 12:29:42 PM
What strikes me as weird is that I went through school in the sixties and seventies, and so did my two brothers and two sisters ... and not one of us ever got lice. In fact, I never knew of or even heard of anyone who got lice during my grade school years.
Now though it seems to happen quite often. Just look at the responses in this thread. What changed?
posted on October 5, 2001 12:44:45 PMMy little girl has such a severe case of headlice that I am now forced to shave her head.
My wife said she's never heard of any child having to get their head shaved even in the worst case senarios. She's been working with 4 - 9 year olds for many years. She said "Rid" also makes a spray that can be used to treat carpets, sofas, etc. and needs to be used if the problem reappears.
posted on October 5, 2001 01:13:14 PM
Lice actually like clean hair rather than dirty hair...easier to lay the eggs I suppose....but when I was a kid I remember having my Saturday night bath and hair wash--but now kids seem to showering & hair washing almost daily. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I don't know about other families---but we do seem to be 'cleaner' these days---and the lice think that is just peachy.
Plus the fact --many of the lice cannot be killed with the PESTICIDES that have been used for the past few years
URUA---three lice killing treatments could easily cause hair to start falling out--lots of warnings on the packages.
[ edited by Zazzie on Oct 5, 2001 01:18 PM ]
posted on October 5, 2001 01:39:44 PM
spazmodeous-I too went to school in the 60's and not any kids I knew or heard of had or got lice.
There was a myth, that lice comes from the 'poor, unkempt' child. Well that was the stereotyping that went around when I was in school, though we never knew anyone that got it.
The child that comes from the best of homes can get lice. It originates in chickens, from what I learned, and when my daughter got it, we had chickens (horses rabbits and cows too) but then so did every other farm on our road, about 30 of them, that my child went to school with.
We 'de liced' our chickens and horses regular with stuff from the feed store.
posted on October 5, 2001 01:48:18 PM
I read that lice are very particular about the species they infest. Human Lice like humans --chicken lice like chickens. Something to do with body temperture.
posted on October 5, 2001 02:09:19 PM
I became a real expert on treating lice a few years back---4 years in a row my kids got infected. The first time I was horrified --worried about what all the parents and kids would think of my children. I spent a small forture on sprays and shampoos and spent New Year's Eve (that's when I found them) washing and drying clothes, sheets, boiling brushes (melted one of them) vacuuming the house, spraying insecticide everywhere and bagging anything I couldn't treat. Lice were banished
The next year--I shampooed the hair with NIX--washed the sheets, pillows, hats--and did a quick vaccum of places their heads might have been. Lice were banished and a bit less money was spent.
The next 2 years I used the suffocation method with oil, washed the sheets, rinsed the brushes, and did a 2 second vacuum of the couch--lice were banished and NO MONEY was spent cause I used some MINERAL OIL I had in the bathroom cupboard
posted on October 5, 2001 02:11:07 PM
This is so strange. At work today we women were talking about head lice and how we all have been through it with our kids and what we knew about getting rid of them. But no one could say were they come from. One person said from the dead leaves off trees. That is what I would be interested in knowing, how do kids get them?
Way back when..I remember my Mother talking about using Lard. Now this is before RID and all the stuff that is available today. She said to work Lard all through the hair and tie a bandana around the head and leave it on all day and night. The next day you wash the hair real good and go "nit pick'n" in the sun. Treat again if necessary.
All the landry had to be cleaned and everything was hung out on the line in the sun all day. Pillows, etc. Now the rumor about them coming from Chickens might have come from the fact that back then people made their own pillows out of Chicken feathers or Goose feathers. That could account for that old tale.
Mom also used Kerosene and Lard as a vapor rub. Good God!! Thank God for Vicks
posted on October 5, 2001 02:22:03 PM
When we lived in North Carolina in the late 50's I remember poor people used kerosene on lice - but I don't know the specifics of how it was applied or if it was mixed with anything - and how you got it cleaned up in turn.
Some of the people we knew did not have hot water or shoes so I am sure they were not going to go get some prescription drug.
posted on October 5, 2001 03:51:51 PM
When my older daughters were young, they got a pretty severe case of headlice. Once we spent about $100 on Rid, etc., we found that we could kill the lice by using a hot blow dryer on their hair and hand-picking the nits.
Sometimes an infestation can last months, especially if the parents are worn out and busted from fighting it!
That's how your own child could get them again, and again, and again!
posted on October 5, 2001 04:54:03 PM
Well, I put neosporin all over her head instead of vaseline. It's the kind with the pain reliever in it. Might do her some extra good. Her scalp is really red and irritated from all the bites. She keeps looking at me and crying saying it hurts and then she cries because her hair is still falling out. I put a showercap over top of her hair and she just keeps crying. I keep telling her it will be ok once the bugs are all gone.
The daycare finally noticed the lice and I received notice that I have to do something about it so she can come back. The school doesn't know about it yet though. Hopefully I can have this fixed over the weekend.
My little girl is half white and half black, which might be why her hair is so sensitive to this stuff. I have to wait and wash her hair every few days normally or her hair gets brittle and wants to break off. The hair products for lice on the market I notice are pretty much made for whites. I asked a few black moms at the daycare and a couple had to do this with their children, but they both said pretty much with their hair they have to shave it to get rid of them because the stuff at the store damages their hair.
I had gone ahead before I saw the dr for myself and treated myself for them, just in case. The stuff made my hair go from brown to blonde. The others in my class I talk to thought I had my hair colored lol. My head still itches though. I'm going to go to the hair salon and have them look too. Bugs make me very nervous. I couldn't get to sleep last night for a while cause I could just picture those things on my head
I hope this oil smothering thing works. She no longer has live lice on her head. But she has nits clumped together. I've combed and combed with those nit combs and hardly any of them come lose. Then, I hate to admit it, but it makes me a little bit nervous getting that close to the things. I am phobic about bugs... I remember once when I was driving down this road one time I got a bug on me, I think it was an ant, and I panicked and jumped out of the car and one of the passengers had to jump over the back of the seat and put on the brakes to stop the car. I just can't stand bugs.
posted on October 5, 2001 05:27:15 PM
Tiggress, I feel for ya....A couple of weeks ago my son was MISdiagnosed by our doctor as having scabies. I almost freaked at the thought of it + how to sterilize my family, house & 3 dogs. Although bugs don't really bother me ('cept maggots, ticks & lice) the thought of these little buggers infecting us was too much! So I can only begin to imagine how you must feel. We were lucky in that we took my son to the hospital (after doing online research myself & discovering that his symptoms & rash locations were very uncharacteristic of scabies) and confirmed what WE thought it was - poison ivy!...You've gotten some super advice here (Zazzie, your info on the suffication method, heat killing & the composure you had after the third incident was VERY reassuring & that info will be tucked away in case (oh please no!) I ever need it!
Hang in there Tiggress, you are a mom & therefore WILL make it though this!!!
