LICE- help me!

[daisy13]

So I found 2 live bugs in my hair today!! yucccccccck!! i think I know where it came from ( my 10 yr old niece who was staying with us and had it and was treated).. Any suggestions for a good lice treatment shampoo?

also, my little baby(17 months old)- i havent seen any in her hair yet and she goes to day care!! what do i do? treat her too? she is too young to be still for nit picking combs!

HELP ME_ I am panicking!!!

[brittone2]

I haven't btdt yet but look at the info on cetaphil as a treatment. There are some old threads in the archives.

Here's a link to a NYT blip about it.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/the-alternative-medicine-cabinet-cetaphil-for-lice/

[crayonblue]

Nix. And DH or a friend to look through your hair every day for the next few days.

[Tondi G]

my neighbor used the Hair fairies for her DD when she got lice. They sell their products but it requires a lot of sitting and combing (I think we sat in the salon for 2 hours at least)

http://www.hairfairies.com/

[essnce629]

DS1, DS2, and I all had lice back in December. DS1 brought them home from school and had about 20 live bugs in his hair and probably about 200 nits!!!! Here's what I did that got rid of them completely:

Made a mixture of mayonaise (~1c), tea tree oil (~20 drops), and vinegar (~1 tbsp) for each one of us, coated our hair with it, put a shower cap on, and let it sit in our hair for at least 1 hour. This killed all the live bugs. I washed our hair out with regular shampoo and you could see all the dead bugs floating in the water (I washed our hair out in the kitchen sink with the drain in so I could see what was coming out). You will need to repeat the mayo mixture in one week to make sure you get any more live bugs since lice have a 7 day life cycle.

To get out all the nits, I ordered the Nit Free Terminator comb (paid for 1 day shipping!) from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HIBPV8
Every day we did a nit comb out until we were all nit free for several days. I'd spray our hair with leave in conditioner and then comb the hair in small sections at a time. I did this with the kids sitting on a chair in the bathroom and I kept a wet paper towel next to me so after each comb of the hair I could wipe the nits on the paper towel. Oh, and when I first found out DS1 had lice I shaved his hair with my shortest hair trimmer attachment since the nits seem to attach about 1/4 inch or so from the scalp. After shaving his head I only saw with my eyes about 20 nits or so attached to his hair BUT when I used the terminator comb I combed out about 150 or more nits!!!!!! So don't go by what you see, go by what you actually comb out! You may not see anything and still have tons of nits! So I'm guessing DS1 had over 200 or so nits, but I only found 2 in my hair, and about 10 in DS2's hair. DBF had none.

After we were lice free I bought the Fairy Tales shampoo and leave in conditioner spray for DS1 to use to keep from getting them again, but you can also put drops of tea tree oil or rosemary oil in your own shampoo and conditioner for a preventative (about 15 drops per bottle). http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_so_1?rh=n%3A3760901%2Ck%3Afairy+tales+hair+ care%2Cp_4%3AFairy+Tales&bbn=3760901&keywords=fairy+tales+hair+care&ie=UTF8&qid=1309899793

And when I first found out about the lice I washed all of our bedding, blankets, towels and stuffed animals in hot water and dried on high heat. After our mayo treatment though I just would throw everything in the dryer each day and run on high heat for 20 minutes. You don't need everything washed in hot water, just dried on high heat to kill any bugs or nits. I also vacuumed every day, including the couch, and then sprayed the couch and the rug where DS2 would play with a mixture of water and tea tree oil. I would also spray their carseats with this mixture.

So that's it. All the lice and nits were gone after about a week. It took several days of comb outs to get all of DS1's nits, but only a few for my hair and DS2's hair. No harsh chemicals needed and I read several posts online saying that many lice are now resistant to the chemicals anyways. The only true way to make sure everything is gone is to keep doing the comb outs. I'll continue to do random comb outs on DS1 every month or so to make sure he doesn't bring anything home again.

[StantonHyde]

Lice can't handle dry+heat. So put everything in the dryer for a very long time. There is also a treatment that involves professional "nit pickers" who will heat your head--try googling lice terminator or something like that. And go for the Rx/OTC=---the homemade stuff is a pain IMO.

[egoldber]

Older DD has lice right now. We did use the chemical shampoo (CVS brand of Rid) and it has seemed to work for her. We found about 10 bugs the first night and a lot of nits.

We got the Terminator comb (found it an an Ulta store) and combed her hair twice a day for the first 4 days and once a day since then. She has long below shoulder length hair and the first night took 2 hours. Since then, it has gone much faster.


Every day we did a nit comb out until we were all nit free for several days. I'd spray our hair with leave in conditioner and then comb the hair in small sections at a time. I did this with the kids sitting on a chair in the bathroom and I kept a wet paper towel next to me so after each comb of the hair I could wipe the nits on the paper towel.

This is what we did as well. I only found a couple nits tonight.

FWIW, the rest of us have not yet had any.