head lice !!!!!

trauma in the birch household. son has head lice AND SO DO I !!!. i have had this problem before and for those of you that haven't it is unbelievably difficult to deal with.

when my other children were smaller, Naomi in particular (the one who was disabled) used to get them from school regularly. we decided it was because all the children at her 'special' school were regularly picked up and carried and therefore the staff were transferring them from one child to another.

i have only had one episode of this since being in Hawaii, and not only Jacob and myself got them, but Zoe who was teaching at his school also picked them up. hubby never gets them and neither did my oldest son Adam. we put this down to the amount of gel/hairspray/etc they both use. myself and Zoe never use 'sticky stuff' on our hair as we both have fine hair. neither do we use hairdryers or curling tongs etc. etc. coz it splits the ends.

the last episode in Hawaii we discovered that hawaiian 'uku' was resistant to nix and rid, the two products that are available to treat them. there is a product called lindane that is very much stronger that eventually killed them.
it was harder to get a prescription for that then it was for me to get a Px for morphine!! (i have a 'non-union fracture' of my right arm and at the time was fresh out of surgery, just in case you were wondering )

i have now been trying for two days straight, calling my Dr. every few hours, to get a Px for it. they no longer stock it because its $80.00 a bottle !!

these are the things i have found out so far in those two days.

it is not necessary to wash all bedding but 20 mins on hot in a tumble dryer will do it.

pets cannot 'transport' them.

soaking hairbrushes in bleach, although deadly for lice, will dissolve the bristles on a real bristle brush !! (so thats another $20 i now have to find)

Vaseline is the best temporary cure, it will suffocate the little b*st*rds, but will not kill the eggs. leave it on for at least an hour.

i have now insisted my doctor calls me personally to discuss treatment options available, and explain why, if it doesn't work, the only stuff available is nix or rid.

if anyone else has any insight on this let me know.

thank god for anonymity! much aloha

 

I haven't read through it, but maybe something in here will help?

http://www.headliceinfo.com/

 

that was incredibly helpful. i looked under Hawaiian head lice and found no useful info, as i thought it was only ours that were resistant, but they're not. they recommended OLIVE OIL, which is easier to clean after than Vaseline. i have just repeatedly combed our hair with a metal 'nit' comb in order to get rid of the worst of it, and did intend to use lindane once i could get a Px. i will now try olive oil tomorrow and continue with the combing. (i couldn't bear the thought of putting Vaseline on my hair ) thanks

 

Been there Laurie..and you are right...they are sooooo hard to get rid of. The good news is they only like clean hair, so no-one can call your family dirty

Bad news...is they adjust to the products made to deal with this problem...kinda like bug overcoming antibiotics. Doesn't matter if you paid $8 or $80 for the product.....the lice know how to get by it. The cheapest and most effective method I found was to add concentrated tea tree oil (lots of it|) to normal shampoo...leave it in....cover hair with plastic and leave it on for an hour. I find it hard to breathe with that stuff on, let alone a tiny lice survive it. To get the beggars' eggs out when you come to wash your hair apply tons of conditioner and brush through with lice comb. If you repeat that about 3 times in a week if needed it should do the trick, and save you a small fortune. HTH

 

Well you can shave his head, but the Sinead O'connor look won't do much for you!

If you do that- post photo!!

This too shall pass.

 

We went through that a few of times. Seemed fairly easy to get rid of. For us a lot of the procedures were overkill. The biggest problem for us was the source, a friend of my daughters, was a long time getting treated so one event became a double.

 

hope you get everything straightened out in a timely matter Laurie.

 

you've all made me feel a lot better, so thanks once again. i intend to do the olive oil treatment tomorrow morning, until i can get chemicals and then i will 'do' our hair again!! it seems fairly logical though that olive oil or tee tree oil would have the same effect as Vaseline, and wet combing with conditioner would stop them from running away from the comb. i will simply repeat this procedure every four or five days until I'm sure that we are free of the damn things. much aloha from a very grossed out mum.

 

I went thru this as kid, it (they) made a few comebacks until they were gone for good (my head itches as I type this).

My wifes friend has been battling them at their house alot this year (with 3 kids), sadly the source has been the neighbors (and their kids). That makes it though since they don't seem to take it too seriously. How do you tell your kids they can't play with their friends?

 

http://www.headlice.org/news/2005/ukubuster.htm
www.ukubusters.com

 

Kodo to the rescue.....................................again.

 

Tea Tree, or Eucalyptus oil and a fine combing with a nit comb often works. As does rubbing in Emu Oil and the combing.

Head lice are becoming resistant to a lot of treatments, because most of them have the same active ingredients.

Nits, or eggs need to be manually removed with the special comb, as the treatments don't usually penetrate the eggs properly.

 

so to sum it all up:

oil is as efficient at killing them as chemicals are. in addition lindane is toxic in the water in very small amounts and has therefore been banned in the U.K. and several of the states. "A single treatment of head lice or scabies with Lindane pollutes 6 million gallons of water."

olive oil is the cheapest and least obnoxious of these oils, in addition if you warm it SLIGHTLY and wrap your head in a hot towel, it acts like a hot oil treatment for your hair. leave it on for two hours.

comb hair before rinsing to get rid of now dead lice.

shampoo and condition. rinse well.

examine hair one section at a time whilst still wet and manually remove eggs. (they are easier to see on wet hair.)

repeat every 7 days for three weeks.

 

forgot to say buy a good quality fine tooth metal nit comb. they are more efficient than the plastic ones, although the Japanese swear by bamboo.

 

My vote goes for adding some Tea Tree oil to the Olive oil. Wonderful stuff.

 

This is down to testosterone, which lice don't like. Women are more prone to head lice than men because of their longer, cleaner, hair, and less testosterone. Although unclean hair is not a barrier to lice.

A number of schools here advocate a natural method of removing lice until they are all gone. That is, use conditioner to make hair slippery and comb the conditioner plus lice out - repeat frequently over the next few weeks until lice are gone.

Here's an interesting story on this subject: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8124-1684473,00.html

If you really after drastic remedies you could you consider a bald cut or changing to be a man... Although a bald headed woman doesn't bear any contemplation... reminds me of the sci-fi Babylon 5, weird!

 

so coconut oil then ! that is even better for your hair than olive oil. it is a 'finer' oil and is therefore more easily absorbed into the hair. i wish i knew how one extracts coconut oil from the actual coconuts, as i have a plethora of them IN MY GARDEN . (dont you all just hate it when i say things like that?) much aloha

 

YES! :|

 

I say, just stick your head in the microwave

 

Oh my...you have my sympathies!! (I'm itching now too)

I get the pleasure of doing lice checks at school (I'm still not sure how I got rooked into that job--and it's volunteer).

Make sure to get rid of the stuffed animals--bag them for a few weeks until your house is clear. They key is really to kill/remove the nits. We had once case where the mother kept insisting that the school kept reinfecting them, but they were the only once that had it. But she wasn't treating her children properly and cleaning the home thoroughly.

Ever since then I've been at least using a blowdryer (and usually hair products) during school season.

 

I agree that NOT using Lindane is a good idea. It has been banned here in California, although you can get a prescription product with Malathion in it . Olive oil with almost any essential oil from a plant seems to work pretty well - we use a mixture of lavender, geranium and eucalyptus oils at the Indian Clinic - I mix it up 5 gallons at a time !!

Also , a 50:50 mix of vinegar and water will loosen the "glue" the nits use to attach to the hair. You can use full strength, but your hair tends to carry the odor for several days. Put it on , work it in well, let it work for 15 - 20 mins, and usually the nits will come right off.

 

The last time we had them in our house, I used dandruff shampoo then stuck my head under the tap and ran very hot water through my hair a few days in a row. You gotta be careful! One of them worked, but would be risky to try on a kid. Next time I'll try the microwave. I'll let you know how it works out.