Yikes! Help, headlice!!!! What natural treatments have you used? ***Update in OP***

[mommy111]

Update: After oil applications, daily wet combing, and using a fine toothed comb a couple of times a day on everyone, including the adults, and dryer-drying every bit of clothing/bedding the kids came in contact with, I am happy to cautiously say that we appear to be lice free. New nits have stopped appearing in DD's head as well as DS's head. Thanks to all of you who helped us avoid the chemical treatments. Katie, thank you also for the suggestion for the metal nit comb, the plastic ones were not working and once we has someone get and ship out one of the metal ones to us, we were all set!


So after restarting school this week, it seems the kids have come home with a little gift....
Pls give me advice about what to do. I want to avoid the medicated shampoo if at all possible. I've heard of the cetaphil, but we're in China and I can't find cetaphil here. I've heard of vinegar and olive oil and mayo. Have any of you used these with any success? I do have a nit comb, and I've done oil and combing out really carefully but I don't think that gets rid of the smaller headlice.
TIA!

[ThreeofUs]

NYTimes ran a great article on this, but it might be subscriber-only.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/he...e&st=cse&scp=1


Here are some highlights:
-anything that will suffocate the lice is great - olive oil, mayo, hair conditioner, or any other mild lotion. You put it on the child's head, heat with a hair dryer, cover in plastic and leave over night. wash out in the morning or at least 8 hours later. repeat at least once a week for 2-3 weeks.
-comb your child's hair and pick nits every.single.day. (you'd have to do this with the pesticide route, too....)
-wash bed linens in hot water and dry at high heat for 20 minutes to kill any runaway lice
-throw stuffed animals, pillows, etc. that have come in contact with the infected person’s head in the drier
-vacuum thoroughly

HTH

[Sweetum]

try applying a heavy oil like castor or any of the things you mentioned and blow drying on high heat. The lice should fall off (they'd be either drunk/drugged or dead). You can put a towel around DC's shoulders to catch them. But it's important to also take care of the nits/eggs, and as far as I know you can do that only with a nit comb (unless you want to use medicated shampoos).

[mommy111]

Awesome, so its the oil plus heat! I tried oil and washing a hour after, but that doesn't seem to work. I'll do the oil/heat/leave in overnight thing and hopefuly that will work. And I guess we'll run the washer/dryer a few times this weekend.
Ivy, thank you so much for the link to the article as well, it does pull up and its a great read.

[AJP]

All of the above suggestions should help and I've heard tea tree oil works too.

[indigo99]

Awesome, so its the oil plus heat! I tried oil and washing a hour after, but that doesn't seem to work.

A big part of it is the time factor. I've heard that you need to wrap in plastic and leave it on overnight because you need to cut off their oxygen supply for six hours or more in order to suffocate them.

I haven't really researched it, but I was under the impression that heat wasn't really used with the oil treatment. It's used with some alcohol and cetaphil treatments to harden the goop. You need extended temps upward of 130-140degrees to actually kill them with heat.

Some studies suggest that the suffocation methods don't really work though. What really does work is plain hard work - removing the nits. The adult louse isn't going to live forever so if you can pick out all of the eggs and prevent new ones from hatching then eventually you'll be lice free.

Be sure that you wash everything in hot water and dry in a hot dryer though. The water doesn't kill them, but the heat does.

[kerridean]

I went through this June 1-21. It was HORRIBLE! The suffocation methods are not proven to work and are not FDA approved treatments.

The official recommendation is to use 2 treatments of NIX, and this is what I would recommend. However, you cannot use any other products in the hair while using NIX!! No conditioner, chlorine, tea tree oil, mayo! It will strip the hair of the NIX.

Unfortunately for us, nothing worked. We ended up with a visit to urgent care and a script for Ovide (Malation). It was a miracle after 3 weeks of pure hell. Next time I am going straight for the big guns....OVIDE.

I HIGHLY recommend going the medication route if you really want this to be over in the next week or so. Especially stay away from the mayo. It can go bad over night and cause salmonella.

[Neatfreak]

Where have the suffocation methods been proven not to work? I must have missed that study; I had high hopes of going the Cetaphil route if we ever are invaded ...

[kerridean]

Where have the suffocation methods been proven not to work? I must have missed that study; I had high hopes of going the Cetaphil route if we ever are invaded ...

I guess I mean they are not FDA approved methods and are not recommended by the CDC or the FDA for treatment of headlice. I prefer to use methods that have been proven and tested to work...but that is the scientist in me.

http://www.cdc.gov/lice/head/treatment.html

[kerridean]

For a really GREAT guideline, google "Spokane Regional Health District Lice Guidelines". I tried to link it here but it is a PDF and too big to link. It explains why some of the home treatments are not recommended. It is VERY helpful.