Lice lessons my family learned the hard way

When we returned from our summer vacation and quickly discovered that all six of us had lice, it kicked off a whole new journey for our family that lasted nearly two months. We did not have active infestations for that whole time, but lice showed up on someone’s head every two weeks or so for the entire period — setting off another cleaning spurt, retreatment and re-combing methods.

We are still combing on a nightly basis and getting close to the point where we can say that we are finally rid of this nightmare (for this round, at least). There are a few things I’ve learned in this process that I wish I had actually known at the very start. So this is a post for those of you finding this in a frantic haze after discovering one or more of your family members is infested and also for those of you that have not yet dealt with these little critters and the big havoc they can wreak on your family.

Lice Lessons, from Me to You

Prevention is everything.

Yes, you should tell your kids not to share hairbrushes, or hats, with classmates or to sleep on the same pillows as friends at sleepovers. There is only so much control that you can have over these actions though. I’d add these practical, actionable tips for parents:

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• Use product in your kids’ hair. Spritz their heads with a scented detangler before they head out the door, or run some kid-friendly mousse through their hair. Lice like clean, unprocessed hair. We went on Amazon and bought Fairy Tales Repel Conditioning Spray (there is also a shampoo), which uses natural scents like rosemary to repel lice from landing on the heads of your kids in the first place. We spray each head as the kids are putting on their backpacks to head out the door.
• Use a lice-repelling shampoo every other day. We use Lice Shield, which is a shampoo and conditioner in one. You can also pour some tea tree oil into the shampoo you already use, or buy a shampoo that uses this ingredient. You don’t need to use these shampoos every day, if you prefer a different scent in between.
• Invest in a lice comb. Go ahead and buy a lice comb (which is basically just an incredibly fine-toothed comb) and pick a designated night of the week to brush through your kids’ hair after their baths or showers. We use baby wipes to clean off the comb during the process because the moisture helps remove any dirt, nits or lice and also because the white helps us spot anything that may be “off.” If you find that you are wiping off a lot of things that look like dirt (despite just washing the hair), you may have an infestation.

Go straight for the prescription.

This is my biggest lice lesson that will save you a TON of time and money. Get the prescription treatment right away!

Here’s the thing about over-the-counter lice medications — they can only kill live lice. The eggs stay behind and are still alive. The point of the comb is to remove those eggs, but if you miss even ONE egg in the process, you are back to square one in a week or two. After dealing with our recurring infestations for over a month, the school nurse suggested that we call our pediatrician and ask for a prescription strength treatment that DID kill the eggs.

I was able to secure the prescription with a simple phone call and pick it up later at our normal pharmacy. Insurance varies, but we paid $10 per bottle of medication (very comparable to over-the-counter treatments). You still need to do a good job of combing to be sure those eggs that were killed are removed, but it will save you several weeks of your life (believe me).

Don’t depend on sight alone.

Lice lesson: those suckers are incredibly, incredibly difficult to spot by simply looking through hair, especially if they are recently hatched and small. The only way to really tell if they are living in the hair is through thorough combing, wiping of the comb and letting the comb soak in a cup of diluted rubbing alcohol (you will see bugs/eggs floating if they exist).

Don’t count on the school for information.

Maybe I’m naïve, but before this incident I always assumed that if a health issue arose that could impact my kids, I would be warned. Not so, though. Due to the privacy of students, school personnel cannot warn you about a case of head lice in your child’s classroom, even if the infested student sat next to your kid and shared his fireman’s hat during dress-up time. Don’t wait until your kid is infested to address the lice issue; be on the lookout at least once per week (see my first point) to nip any infestation in the bud. Lice lessons = life lessons.

Don’t wash everything.

Another time saver in my lice lessons – washing everything isn’t really necessary. In fact, just throwing potentially infested items into the dryer for 20 to 30 minutes at maximum heat is enough to kill the lice. Of course, you may feel so creeped out that a thorough wash and dry is in order for every cloth item in your entire house — that’s how we reacted the first time. But after consecutive times, we started going the dryer-alone route.

You can also simply bag up items like stuffed animals and pillows and set them aside for a week or so, then bring them back out. Lice can only live without a human host for 2 days, and their eggs are very difficult to remove from the hair shaft (so it is unlikely that they will just fall off and land on pillows or stuffed animals). Don’t forget about washing or drying the fabric portions of car seats and high chairs too.

Don’t get comfortable.

Of all the lice lessons I’ve included, this is the easiest to skip — but you can’t get complacent! Perhaps you’ve treated the infested heads in your household and then followed up by using the lice comb for a few nights and you keep coming up clean. Don’t stop using it until two weeks after the initial treatment. The idea here is that you can’t possibly comb every single strand, every single time but that over time you will hit each one. If after two weeks, you are still coming up clean it might be safe to breathe a sigh of relief.

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Category: Health

Tags: Katie