Overwhelmed

[saleenl]

I know I don't post a ton, I'm kinda private, but I can't believe the week I've had. First, my dear friend and neighbor had a double mastectomy on Wednesday. Her son is the same age as DS and they hang out every day. I've been lucky enough to let him spend time at our house every day after school to have snack, do homework, and play with DS to keep things as "normal" as possible. Everything's been tough, since DS and DD know what's going on and they are so scared for their friend and his mom, but then today DD had her yearly checkup. Before the doctor came in I noticed a bug in her hair...and then nits... I told our ped to tell me I was crazy, but I wasn't - it's lice. DD has thick, long hair so this won't be a fun time. We spent hours working on her hair but there are still nits. DH has nits, too, but he tried to deal with it himself today. I'll check tonight. He didn't see nits in my hair (and I just dyed it, so maybe I'm ok?) and DS has a buzz cut so that's something. I decided to hire a pro to deal with the lice and she's coming tomorrow so maybe we're ok. I'm just so worried that my dear friend's son now has lice. There is another really close neighborhood friend that is best friends with DS and our neighbor son, and she has nits. I feel like we've brought the whole neighborhood down with this! All the kids feel comfortable hanging out here after school and now we're a lice zone. :-( I just wanted to be able to help everyone else. This just stinks.

[123LuckyMom]

Oh, I'm so sorry! The experts will get rid of the lice, so don't worry! I'd make sure you tell your friend and make sure she can handle the fallout if there is any. Maybe you can help with bagging/washing/combing at her house if the problem has spread. There's no telling where the lice originated, though. You may not be the contaminators, so it's not worth burdening yourself with that! Hugs to you! It's hard when it all seems to pile up!

[ArizonaGirl]

Oh honey, that all is terrible by itself, but to happen all at once is horrible.

You haven't brought the neighborhood down, so don't worry.

Soon your house will be free of the little buggers and that will bring back some normalcy.

I'm so sorry about your neighbor, that is just terrible.

:hug:

[hillview]

Argh so sorry! Can you hire a nit nanny picker person and get a deal and have amini block party with wine and cookies??

[MamaMolly]

I suspect you weren't the first with lice, just the first to notice them. ;) Hugs, and I hope the worst is over.

[saleenl]

Thanks for the support. We had a lice specialist over today and she checked our neighbor's son and he's lice-free!!! :cheerleader1: I am SO relieved!!!

Our other neighbor's daughter had lice, as well as both DD and DS - and me. :thumbsdown: The lice lady was AMAZING, though. She was truly an expert and removed all the nits and bugs by hand. We are almost done with our olive oil saran wrap treatment, which we will repeat mid-week, and then she comes back next Saturday for a recheck. I think we can beat this!

[123LuckyMom]

Thanks for the support. We had a lice specialist over today and she checked our neighbor's son and he's lice-free!!! :cheerleader1: I am SO relieved!!!

Our other neighbor's daughter had lice, as well as both DD and DS - and me. :thumbsdown: The lice lady was AMAZING, though. She was truly an expert and removed all the nits and bugs by hand. We are almost done with our olive oil saran wrap treatment, which we will repeat mid-week, and then she comes back next Saturday for a recheck. I think we can beat this!

Of course you can beat this!!! I'm glad you're feeling confident about it now, though. And I'm super glad your friend doesn't have an infested house. A double mastectomy is enough on anyone's plate! Hooray for the lice lady!

[dogmom]

I know this is a bitching post, but I just had to respond because I just had to talk a friend off the extreme lice ledge last night.

Please don't go to places like this forum or nit pickers to educate yourself about lice. I did to start THEN I went to the CDC site to understand the life cycle of the head lice and did a search on actually research and realize half the advice out there is complete crap.

You don't need to clean.
You don't to need to keep people out of your house. If it was the easy to get lice, think about it, the whole school would get it
You don't need to remove every nit, that's crap also. If there aren't close to the scalp they can't hatch, so who cares. Plus research shows that 50% of the time what people think are viable nits/eggs aren't.
It takes 6 days for a newly hatched louse to reach sexually maturity and breed. Which is why you wait between treatments and you don't have to do nightly checks that drive houses insane.
Lice die pretty quickly off the body. So it's not like they are lurking around the corner and jump back on. They don't jump.

And finally, I highly recommend getting a bottle of wine and watching the head lice episode of South Park after the kids go to bed.

[Simon]

Whew, I would be feeling overhelmed, too. I'm so glad you were able to get a professional to help with the lice. Its wonderful that your neighbor has someone like you to help you and I hope her recovery is going well.

[ncat]

I know this is a bitching post, but I just had to respond because I just had to talk a friend off the extreme lice ledge last night.

Please don't go to places like this forum or nit pickers to educate yourself about lice. I did to start THEN I went to the CDC site to understand the life cycle of the head lice and did a search on actually research and realize half the advice out there is complete crap.

You don't need to clean.
You don't to need to keep people out of your house. If it was the easy to get lice, think about it, the whole school would get it
You don't need to remove every nit, that's crap also. If there aren't close to the scalp they can't hatch, so who cares. Plus research shows that 50% of the time what people think are viable nits/eggs aren't.
It takes 6 days for a newly hatched louse to reach sexually maturity and breed. Which is why you wait between treatments and you don't have to do nightly checks that drive houses insane.
Lice die pretty quickly off the body. So it's not like they are lurking around the corner and jump back on. They don't jump.

And finally, I highly recommend getting a bottle of wine and watching the head lice episode of South Park after the kids go to bed.

I agree with much of this, but DID need to remove all of the nits from DD when she was infested. The nits were completely inviable - obvious from the distance from her scalp, and from visual inspection with a low-power toy microscope. But, she desperately needed a professional haircut after the emergency hack job I did and the salon would not cut her hair while the nits were present. Also, she needed lice clearance for Girl Scout camp. Olive oil was miraculous at helping to remove the remaining nit cases.
As far as around the house, we were careful with pillows, hats, and towels until the infestation was resolved. Also froze all hair accessories. Other than that, not really much to worry about.
I agree with the others that you were most likely the ones to infest the neighborhood, so much as the ones to first notice.