Question about lice exposure

[Aubrey]

If someone is sent home w/ lice, what's the soonest they could/should return to group activities?

 

If your dc are exposed, obviously you pick thr their hair for a while, but...what about you & your dh? Do the adults need to be checked/treated? (I can't really see why not.)

 

And then, what do you do if your hair, pulled into a ponytail, is thicker than the diameter of a quarter & runs halfway down your back?

 

I'd think lice would be easiest to see in blond hair & eggs easiest to see in black hair. Yes? No?

 

Everything I've read goes on & on about how lice are not a reflection of a person's hygeine, etc. If you catch them somewhere & then deal w/ it, I agree. But what about the person who has them in an over & over? Who either doesn't treat it or treats it inadequately & then takes their kids to public places repeatedly. And then does the same thing the following year. It *seems* like more than bad luck, but maybe I'm just uninformed & annoyed.

 

Where would a family find lice that they keep having to deal w/ every yr this time of yr? I feel bad not to go help, but...really w/ as much hair as I've got, their house seems like Kryptonite to me. ;)

[emubird]

When my kids were in school, they were allowed back in after we had shampooed with an insecticide shampoo and there were no "visible" nits or lice. Visible meant the school staff couldn't see them. I don't know if this policy really works, though. My kids got reinfested several times at school.

 

Yes, the adults in a louse infested household should be checked, along with the other kids. So should teachers, etc.

 

I don't think long hair is going to be any more susceptible to lice or harder to search. The lice stay up by the scalp so the length of hair shouldn't matter. The nits may be found further down in the hair as they stay stuck for a long time, but the older nits will either be already hatched or dead.

 

If lice keep reappearing, it's either a reinfestation from a source that isn't getting cleaned up, or the insecticide shampoo is no longer working. A lot of lice are now resistant to the insecticide. Last I checked the most resistance was to the prescription insecticide, not the OTC stuff. (Although there were apparently plenty of lice resistant to the OTC stuff as well.)

 

The source is generally another head. The lice don't seem to live very long off the head.

 

I did find that the lice we had were basically blond in color and rather hard to see. However, there are different strains of lice around. They might come in different colors as an adaptation. I've heard that there are different strains, for example, that do well in straight hair vs others that do well in curly hair. However, I don't know how much of that has any scientific basis and how much is hearsay.

 

If kids are around lots of other kids, they may tend to get lice more often, so no, it probably isn't just "bad luck". Kids in daycare and school will be exposed more. But I don't know that one can do much to avoid them other than not sharing pillows and brushes or being a hermit. Young kids tend to spread them really easily, probably just because they get so up close and personal.

[abbeyej]

Yeah, Aubrey, I agree with you. Getting lice is not necessarily a reflection on hygiene. But an ongoing infestation? It says to me that the family has simply given up and is no longer making any attempt to control them. They might be treating the kids' heads, but that's totally inadequate. Every soft surface needs to be washed or bagged in plastic for three days and then vacuumed thoroughly...

 

For my own kids, I would switch to a tea-tree based shampoo (Jason brand is the one we've used, though any health food store should have several). Alternately, you can add a few drops of tea tree, eucalyptus, and/or rosemary oil to your regular shampoo -- not too many, a little goes a long way. I'd wash their hair with the tea tree shampoo before you expect to see this family and again after. I would french braid the girls' hair, if it's long enough, and I would tie a scarf over the girls' hair as well. Boys are tougher, since you'll be indoors and you can't leave him in a baseball cap...

 

When you get home, wash *all* of their clothes and the scarves (no re-wearing), and wash and *blow*dry* to *complete* dry everyone's hair before going to bed that night. (You can use a metal nit comb then as well.)

 

For your hair, I would also add a few drops of tea tree to your shampoo and/or conditioner. French braids and a scarf tied over your hair would also be wise.

 

For treating lice, I'd use equal parts Dr. Bronner eucalyptus soap and olive oil along with tea tree and rosemary oils. It'll mix up to a thick paste. Put all over the hair and cover with a shower cap for about an hour. Then wash thoroughly, blow dry, and use a nit comb.

 

Our homeschool group had a big outbreak a few years ago. Most people only had lice for a short time, but certain kids kept bringing them back to the group. I had never even seen lice before! When I first saw a louse on dd, my reaction was to *scream*! But we got rid of them immediately and never had them again. Dh gave me a hard time about how obsessed I was about making sure we did *everything* we could to rid ourselves of this and make sure it didn't come back. But I'd seen other people deal with them over and over again. I did *not* want to do that. So I researched everything I could.

[MorganClassicalPrep]

Just a funny story about lice... (Did I really just use "funny" and "lice" in the same sentence?)

 

When I was in elementary school, I was sent home with lice. My mom bought the OTC stuff, we washed and combed my (LONG!) hair, she washed and vacuumed, everything you are supposed to do. Back to school... and they sent me home again for having lice! AGAIN, wash, comb, clean.....

 

Back to school, and would you believe it they sent me home again? Mom took me to the dr. and turns out......

 

the "lice" were droplets of hair spray, from where my mother had been doing my hair (late 80s-early 90s, big poufy bangs anyone? lol)

 

I have no experience dealing with them as an adult, so no help there.

[MariannNOVA]

Yeah, Aubrey, I agree with you. Getting lice is not necessarily a reflection on hygiene. But an ongoing infestation? It says to me that the family has simply given up and is no longer making any attempt to control them. They might be treating the kids' heads, but that's totally inadequate. Every soft surface needs to be washed or bagged in plastic for three days and then vacuumed thoroughly...

 

For my own kids, I would switch to a tea-tree based shampoo (Jason brand is the one we've used, though any health food store should have several). Alternately, you can add a few drops of tea tree, eucalyptus, and/or rosemary oil to your regular shampoo -- not too many, a little goes a long way. I'd wash their hair with the tea tree shampoo before you expect to see this family and again after. I would french braid the girls' hair, if it's long enough, and I would tie a scarf over the girls' hair as well. Boys are tougher, since you'll be indoors and you can't leave him in a baseball cap...

 

When you get home, wash *all* of their clothes and the scarves (no re-wearing), and wash and *blow*dry* to *complete* dry everyone's hair before going to bed that night. (You can use a metal nit comb then as well.)

 

For your hair, I would also add a few drops of tea tree to your shampoo and/or conditioner. French braids and a scarf tied over your hair would also be wise.

 

For treating lice, I'd use equal parts Dr. Bronner eucalyptus soap and olive oil along with tea tree and rosemary oils. It'll mix up to a thick paste. Put all over the hair and cover with a shower cap for about an hour. Then wash thoroughly, blow dry, and use a nit comb.

 

Our homeschool group had a big outbreak a few years ago. Most people only had lice for a short time, but certain kids kept bringing them back to the group. I had never even seen lice before! When I first saw a louse on dd, my reaction was to *scream*! But we got rid of them immediately and never had them again. Dh gave me a hard time about how obsessed I was about making sure we did *everything* we could to rid ourselves of this and make sure it didn't come back. But I'd seen other people deal with them over and over again. I did *not* want to do that. So I researched everything I could.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:......and I also have to add that it's because folks do not perform everything you wrote above - which one really does need to do to stop LICE in their tracks - and b/c they don't go through all the work and expense and they do a half-a**ed job, their kids go back into school or church or wherever (ask me about riding lessons :glare:) and re-infestation starts again. I lost days from my office years ago when dd was found to have lice -- no one else in our house got it - we stopped it with her, but the same little girl in third grade kept coming back to school and the whole thing started again. That little girl's family was not doing what you described above.

[emubird]

I have to say that I'm not convinced that washing actually accomplishes anything. It's the dryer that kills them. I think you have to get them up to 140 degrees or so to kill them and most hot water heaters don't heat the water up that high, nor will it still be that hot when it gets into the washing machine.

 

You could just dry things (like scarves etc) on high and skip the washing.

 

Regular shampooing on a head obviously has no effect. I've seen lice just get up, shake themselves off, and walk away after shampooing. I've read that soap and shampoo used to be effective, but well, selection has been at work here.

 

I suspect picking the lice off the head is really the best treatment there is. Even after insecticide shampoo, there are plenty of lice climbing around in the hair. And it's not entirely clear if that gets in to the eggs. I know the shampoo companies say the insecticide sterilizes the adults, but I'm not sure this is really proven. (For some strange reason, there isn't a lot of lice research being done. I think the problem is that they really only survive on the human head.)

 

And you can't really pull the nits off the hair with a nit comb unless they're fresh. If the cement has hardened, all you'll do is pull the hair out. It's less traumatic to just cut off each strand that has a nit.

 

When there was a major infestation at my daughter's school, we finally only succeeded in keeping her from getting reinfested by keeping her home for 3 weeks.