I had head lice when I was 10 or so. They are terrible. My head itches now.
I have a magnifying craft lamp that I use now. Otherwise I’m too blind to see a thing. It makes a huge difference in that you feel more confident that you haven’t missed anything.
Yee-OUCH! I hope she feels better real soon. And since the whole town will know about the lice problem, now may be a good time to out the school nurse. 
Poor mudgirl. Hope she feels better soon.
Aw - poor kid! I missed this somehow yesterday.
And feeling that wretched, I guess she’s not exactly feeling up to having you paw through her hair either.
I have never had lice, but I am scratching my head like a motherfucker right now. Damn you!
My daughter got head lice and it does take HOURS of combing to get rid of them. No fun for anyone. I found a metal-toothed comb called a Robicomb did a good job, and electrocutes the suckers too: http://www.amazon.com/LiceGuard-Robi-Comb-Electronic-Detector-Remover/dp/B000P6TF8W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1256573879&sr=8-1
Well, I’m sure she wasn’t ‘feeling up’ to having me paw through her hair, but I did it anyway! (Her fever’s a little higher today, but she isn’t vomiting, since she isn’t eating anything! I have her basically on ‘clear liquids’ until her tummy feels better). But I did a treatment anyway! Since I have to order the more exotic oils online, the treatment I did just now was very basic. Cheap hair conditioner (I used the coconut, since I’ve read a couple places that the little buggers don’t like coconut; don’t know how true it is, but since I needed cheap conditioner anyway, the coconut couldn’t hurt), slathered all through her hair. Hair divided into three layers. Lice comb through top layer first, then second layer, then bottom layer; then work back up: bottom layer (until comb is coming out clean), then middle layer (again: until comb is coming out clean), then top layer.
I won’t tell you how many adults, nymphs and nits I pulled out of her hair. It’s too disgusting!
I did manage to procure some tea tree oil at a local pharmacy. In a few minutes, I’ll mix a couple drops of tea tree oil with some of the coconut shampoo, and shampoo her hair.
Tomorrow, we’ll repeat the process. We’ll repeat it as often as necessary until ‘real’ help comes in the mail!
Yuck! I got them in India after teaching a class of 7 year-olds and bending down (basically head-to-head) over their work a lot.
I told the doc at the hospital I was working at (the children were staff member’s kids at the school on the compound), and she gave me a bottle of the local stuff they use. I had brought a nit-comb with me, and was using it every night as a precation, so I caught it very early, thank goodness.
It was an Ayurvedic thing she gave me- I think Neem, rosemary and something else in coconut oil. One night combing, bedclothes and clothing washed in HOT water, and it was sorted. I went back to just nightly wet combing and never found another nasty after that.
It is NOT a nice thing at all.
The current recommendation in the UK is that all children who attend school or daycare have their hair wet-combed every 4 days- mechanical clearance plus early detection is the way to go.
All three of mine came home with lice from a summer camp one year. The boy got buzzed, no problem, but the middle one had waist-length hair and a tender head. I never want to go through that again!!
We had a lice problem a couple of years ago that no amount of Nix could cure. We got a prescription from our pediatrician and then read the warnings on it and decided not to use it. We buzzed everyone’s hair (including my long hair and my husband’s beard) and used olive oil and combed for a couple of weeks, then a couple of times a week, then once a week until we thought it was safe to stop. The olive oil got most of them in the first try. We put it on, covered our heads with shower caps, called it “Funny Hat Night” and bought some pizza. The kids loved it. Fortunately it hasn’t come back.
Not sure if this is just a local policy, but the school here (south coast of England) makes a specific point of not identifying an infestation of headlice - that is, if a teacher observes one child scratching furiously and subsequently even manages to see adult lice crawling on the child’s head, a letter goes out to all parents in that class or yeargroup stating “it is believed that some children in the school may have a problem with headlice”.
Apparently, it is not permissible for the teacher at any point to engage the specific child’s parents on the topic.
That is one of the stupidest things i’ve ever heard.
By the time a parent might notice on his/her own, the infected child could spread them to SO many people!
I am so embarrassed about having them, but I 'fessed up and had to tell people so they could keep an eye out, or at least be forewarned.
But no one has 'fessed up to me this time (or the last time or when a housemate got them last year). I know we could have gotten them from a random stranger or some weird circumstance, but it’s most likely someone we know/knew and the fact that someone had them and didn’t do anything about it makes me crazy. Sure, if someone had them and didn’t know it and passed the bugs along, then I can’t blame them, but if they DID know or found out soon after contact, just give a heads up. I had no idea I had them both times but if I knew they were “going around”, I would have figured it out a lot quicker.
See, this is one of the things that bothers me most about a school nurse checking and finding nothing. It lulled me into a false sense of security for several days. Heaven knows how many unsuspecting kids she could have passed it to in the interim!
Crap. I’ve been reading this thread, and thinking, thank goodness it’s not my kids this time!
Hoo boy, was I ever wrong.
My little girl has it in spades, while my big girl seems to have gotten away with it this time. Man, I was so much happier 5 hours ago.
And yes, a school nurse just check them out a few days ago.
I’m just thankful I’ve got this fantastic Israeli lice comb - it’s got great brand name, “assy 2000”.
Yes, and that’s what happens all the time. I think they’re either trying to avoid the embarrassment of facing the parents, or are scared of their righteous indignation (most probably the latter - it seems pretty much the norm for parents to storm in and complain about anything that upset their perfect little angels)
I am truly sorry (and I say that with no snark or sarcasm at all!) to have screwed up your day! But I’m really glad you know about it now, so you can deal with it! Best of luck!
Yeah. Public Service Announcements seem to say, all the time “Head lice is nothing to be ashamed of”, and then they treat it like it’s something to be ashamed of. What are kids going to believe?
I mean, if one kid in the class had a diagnosed case of Swine Flu, you can believe they’d be all over it. But God forbid they have head lice. . .:rolleyes:
Thank you for the kind wishes!
I’m so glad I saw this thread - it wouldn’t have occurred to me to look too closely at my girlies’ heads otherwise.
Such funny timing – I read this thread yesterday, scratched my head lavishly, and then my 9-year-old daughter brought home a letter from school saying that one of the kids in her class has lice. The parents were instructed to examine their kids’ heads thoroughly and then check off whether they found anything or not. I combed through her wet hair with our fine-toothed comb and and am relieved to report that as of 8pm last night, there is no lice outbreak in the shantih home.
As opposed to three years ago, just after we came back home after being away for the holidays. My son complained about an itchy head and I looked through and found nothing. Then I swiped the lice comb through a section of hair and came out with three adults. Ew! Ew! Ew! He had picked them up from a friend just before Christmas and I didn’t find anything when I examined him then. By the time we figured it out, all of us had our own traveling circus except my husband. Gee, that was a fun trip to the pharmacy. While we all sat around with the liquid stuff on our heads for ten minutes (I couldn’t begin to tell you how it compares to other remedies, but what we were given is based on chrysanthemum oils, smells rather nice, and leaves your hair just gleaming, not that it’s worth it, mind you!), I gathered up all the bedclothes, stuffed animals, jackets, and any clothes that had touched us. I washed everything that could be washed in the highest possible temperature, bagged up everything else and jammed it in the freezer, and remade the beds.
That was pretty much the routine for two straight weeks – if I was going to all that hassle, I was by golly only going to have to go through it once. I had the kids wash their hair daily and combed through their conditioner-soaked hair every time. After 10 days, we repeated the treatment with the liquid and then all was well again.
I still get ooked out by movie theater seats and will never understand why schools have the kids’ hooks so close together – when they all have their jackets and coats shoved together, it’s not wonder that the problem spreads.
Gah! The silver lining is that at least these disgusting little vermin aren’t actually harmful. If they spread disease instead of itching, it would be much more dire.