Waving the White Flag with Lice . . . Help!!

Either throw away the pillows or put ALL of the pillows and stuffed animals in a plastic bag and keep them there for at least 2 weeks. Was everything in HOT water. There was a lice scare at my daughters school so I called my hair dresser to ask how to prevent them. She said to put gel or mousse in the childs hair and also blow dry it. The lice don't like dirty hair and the nits can't live thru the heat of the dryer.
Good Luck

One word, Mayo! Worked the first time and never had to retreat. I tried everything under the sun an nothing worked until this. Take a cup of Mayo and warm it up enough just to get the chill of say 10- 15 sec. Put it on the head and rub it in and cover it with a shower cap. Leave it in as long as possible. I left it in for over an hour, then rinse it out and wash as normal. I also use the blow dryer on my kids hair, the bugs can't survive the heat. Good luck!

I have never used a service, but know from experience that the place you need to concentrate is on the head of the person who has them. Hours, and hours, and hours of picking with a metal lice comb, over several days, then repeated in a week. Just one egg left behind is all it takes, and the life cycle of lice is very specific, they can't jump, and require a blood meal within 24 hours or so to survive, so even if you have a bug hatch on a hair on teh couch, it is more likely than not that it will die, unless you put your head down there in the right time. They really depend on you leaving a nit or egg behind or head to head contact.

Rid makes a gel that is not a pestacide to use after you treat while you comb, it helps to get the eggs and nits. You can see them in the gel as you comb too, which is helpful. I would use what ever you are using to treat, then put a movie on, and use the gel and comb until it is over, then do it again, for the next few days.

If you have already done that, maybe the pros can help.

M.

Maybe your child gets re-infested by another kid? Buy a Bug Bag and make sure you kid puts his/her coat in it EVERY day till at least Middle School. They last forever so it's a one time expense
www.bugbagusa.com
Good luck

I hear you. @years ago I had the same problem I was dealing with it for MONTHS!!!!. I washed and dryed all bedding, pillows, tied syuffed anilals in airtight bags and put them in the attic for months, I vacumed, disinfected, and got the rid spray and sprayed EVERYTHING. You have to vacume mattresses and couches and chairs, i washed throw rugs, I used rid in our hair. The little plastic combs that come with the rid do not work! You need to buy a long metal one and comb everyday. What you pull out of her hair put on a pice of paper and put it in a trash bag and take it outside right away. I still use tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner sometimes just to repel. I also used the mayo treatment where you spread mayo on the hair (very thick) and cover the hair with a plastic bag for 2 hours to smother. What I did the very last time was first the mayo treatment, then tea tree oil treatment, then rid, then comb, comb comb! I know its awful!!! I still shiver everytime i hear the word lice! That is a very BAD word in our house! I don't know about the professional thing as we don't have any inour area. Those little pests are a pain in the a$$ to get rid of I know. I am so sorry to hear your going through it. Oh I also soaked brushes, combs, ect in scalfing hot water after every use. I shaved my boys head even!

USE A PROFESSIONAL! If you have been battling this for over a month, it is time to call one in!!!

My son kept getting them constantly from school - eventually I started combing his hair with a nit comb and copious amounts of conditioner every single day - that way you break the cycle of egg laying.

My daughter has never had lice but there was an outbreak at her preschool over the summer and I did a lot of research just in case. Here is what I came up with
http://www.licekiller.com/ It's all natural- no pesticides

http://www.hairfairies.com/salon/ Located in Lincoln Park, IL.
Kidsnips also sells a shampoo and conditioner that is supposed to repel lice. I just washed my daughters hair with Suave coconut shampoo (I was told they didn't like the smell) and let her use hair gel everyday and she didn't get lice.

Hope this helps and Good Luck!

My dds had lice this summer. I called one of the professionals around Cleveland but they did not service my area but gave me advice. Using mayo does not work. The best way to get rid of them is to thoroughly go through the hair every day and pull the eggs out (I ended up just pulling the entire piece of hair because it was just easier). Get yourself some reading glasses to help you see everything.

Also another thing to do is use some mousse and hairspray on the hair after you have done a comb through. Lice do not like styling products because they "gunk up" the hair and it is not a smooth surface which the lice like.

Also I have read that you don't have to do a thorough cleaning of your house. Lice will not leave or fall out of the hair unless it is near the end of their life cycle. Changing the bedding every couple days is all you need to do.

My DH also got me one of the Robi Combs from the drug store. It is a battery operated comb that buzzes. You run it through the hair and if a live louse gets caught in the teeth, it stops buzzing. This was the best thing to get all the live lice out. It won't work for the eggs but you need to get rid of the live ones too so they don't lay anymore eggs.

I followed this advice and the lice was gone within a couple weeks. My dds have super thick hair and it was also very long at the time so it was hard for me to get every egg out when I went through the hair.

We've never had lice, but it seems everyone at our school has. Everyone raves about the mayo thing. I would definitely try that. Also, that lice have a 12 or 15 day cycle (might want to Google this) so even when you think you're in the clear, they do pop up again. So you have to be diligent and maybe repeat the mayo and hot dryer for pillows, etc. every 5 days until you're sure. Also, the "nit pickers" (hair fairies, etc.) are expensive but guarantee 100% that every bug and nit will be gone. Still have to take care of things at home, but your kid will come out lice-free. One last thing -- you might need to treat everyone else in the house -- maybe you're passing it around? Good luck. So many people struggle with this but eventually you will win! (PS: I don't know if this is why we haven't had lice yet, but I do keep my daughter's hair braided or in a pony tail, rub tea tree oil in it and spray it with hairspray! "They" say lice don't like any of these things. I also remind her not to hug or tell secrets with her head pressed against her friends' heads. Not sure she follows my advice, but so far, so good....)

I hope I'm not jinxing myself by writing this out loud, but we have avoided the "lice bullet" so far...
My mom has a great friend who is a nanny and her "family" had a ridiculously long lice incident/experience. I thought the poor mom was going to go straight to the looney hatch. My mom's friend was OFTEN asked to come extra hours to help deal with the lice battle, and she did so willingly, because she knew how they were being challenged and felt so bad for the mom.
I say if you can find a de-lousing professional--Go FOR IT!
And they will be more matter-of-fact dealing with it since they aren't swept away with the emotional aspect & frustration. Good luck!

My co-worker had this problem this summer. She ended up having a team called the Lice Detectives come to her home. They showed her how to look for/comb through hair the right way and clean her "things". Of course you pay them, but she said it was well worth it. She has not had a problem since. (licedetectives.com)

There is now a pill! Ask your ped.

Stromectal Pill Beats Malathion in Killing Drug-Resistant Head Lice
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

March 10, 2010 -- Stromectal -- a pill containing ivermectin, a drug used to prevent heartworms in dogs -- kills head lice that are resistant to first-line treatment better than malathion-based lotion.

The finding comes from a clinical trial sponsored by Merck, which makes the parasite-killing pill.

When children bring home head lice, doctors usually recommend treatment with one of several brands of pyrethroid-based products, such as Elimite, Acticin, Nix, A-200, Licide, Pronto, Pyrinyl Plus, Rid, and Tisit (although a recent study showed that a louse-smothering product called Ulesfia works well). But pyrethroid treatment fails if the head lice have become resistant to the pesticide.

What should you try next? The Merck trial pitted Stromectal against an alcohol-based product containing the powerful pesticide malathion (Prioderm Top).

The study enrolled 812 head lice-infected people from 376 households in the UK, Ireland, France, and Israel. Each household had already tried to get rid of the pests with a pyrethroid product. All the people in each household had an alcohol-based lotion applied to their heads by investigators -- and each took a pill -- on two occasions seven days apart.

Half the people who got the lotion got the real product and half got a sham product; half those getting pills got real Stromectal and half got an inactive placebo.

On day 15, 95% of patients assigned to Stromectal and 85% of those assigned to Prioderm Top were free of lice.

More patients preferred taking the pill to using the lotion. That isn't surprising, as the lotion had to be left in the hair for 10 to 12 hours before washing out.

There was one serious adverse event in each group. A 7-year-old girl had a seizure six days after her first dose of Stromectal and was hospitalized, then sent home with a prescription for an epilepsy drug. An 11-year-old girl had a severe headache six days after first application of malathion lotion; she was hospitalized overnight but recovered fully.

"Ivermectin may be a good alternative to malathion when topical insecticide resistance is suspected," conclude study researchers Olivier Chosidow, MD, PhD, of Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris.

The Chosidow study appears in the March 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

If you are comfortable with this- hair dye kills lice. I have a friend who would dye their kids hair at the first sign of lice and it works! (makes me a little nervous about dying my own hair though!) She just used a color that matched her child's hair and did it that way.
Good luck though!
~C.