<p>I don’t know why I am bringing this up, but I thought I would be proactive
Since many kids are going to camps/college where they may be sharing brushes and hats.</p>
<p>On another thread lice was brought up as an example of neglect, but it * is * very contagious, and my older daughter got it a few years ago, when she borrowed a helmet from the barn where she rode.</p>
<p>We had tried all the nix type products, ( which are toxic)but I wanted to share what actually worked.</p>
<p>Washing her hair with lavender shampoo after putting Rosemary oil on it overnight. The strength of scent seems to be important and the oil makes the little buggers come off.</p>
<p>Emeraldk, :eek: But this is a really good post. </p>
<p>Lice are so very equal opportunity. It is not about how virtuous you are or how clean you keep your children (or they keep themselves). In fact, head lice like nothing better than a head of freshly-washed hair.</p>
<p>Fortunately it’s been years since we had to deal, but that’s just luck; it is definitely NOT just a little-kid thing. D’s dorm had an infestation last year, after a break. She was lucky to escape the critters that time.</p>
<p>Skilled combing/picking is the most crucial aspect, if you get an infestation. (Second would be cleaning the house.) One year I had the pleasure (well, sort of) of watching the nurse at GS camp “pick” my D and the rest of my troop. Man, she was good. I think it’s a lost art, but one that seems poised for a comeback. The years of pyrethrin-based products’ effectiveness are over, and as you said, emeraldk, they’re toxic anyway.</p>
<p>Geez, now that you’ve gotten me started, I’m remembering the horrible year when S1’s huge collaborative - two classes’ worth of kids - classroom, all cozy with pillows, rugs, etc., was host to the worst infestation any of us had ever encountered. Within about a week and a half, there wasn’t a stitch of fabric left in the classroom. All the boys had buzzcuts, all the girls had versions of pixie-cuts. (Still took another week or two to find the kids whose families weren’t following up at home.) You ought to see the class picture - looks as if it was taken in 1965 or something. Ahhhh, elementary school.</p>
<p>And I get to do it all again!</p>
<p>But I digress. Thanks again for the post, emeraldk. It’s an important reminder.</p>
<p>I hated how toxic all the over the counter treatments were. Especially when you are having to put it on little kids. I think my D was in 6th grade and she had blondish hair so it was easy to see them, but still OMG, it was only by trial and error that we got rid of them.</p>
<p>Plus- she was the kind where she would sit patiently while I combed through her hair ( nit comb- waste of money) if my other daughter had gotten lice- we would have been SOL, because she didn’t even let me cut her hair , let alone brush it or wash it.
She was a wild child.</p>
<p>In terms of things you can catch in college, probably not up there in severity, but they are very annoying.</p>
<p>My sister and I got lice in elementary school when a girl down the block spent the night and used our pillows…we didn’t know she had lice at the time (obviously). </p>
<p>It was a nightmare…my sister and I both have VERY thick hair, and at this point we both had it down to our waists. My mom still refuses to talk about it.</p>
<p>at this point we both had it down to our waists. My mom still refuses to talk about it.</p>
<p>I don’t blame her.
So did you have to cut your hair?</p>
<p>It’s only now with the subject being brought up on another thread that I even thought about it. It’s interesting how you can block out things- but it was really traumatic & I think part of it was, even though we knew how she got it, was that someone would think I was a " bad" mother.
:eek:</p>
<p>Nope…as soon as my mom figured out what was up (which took a day or two because we both have dark hair as well), she loaded us into the AstroVan (flashbacks, anyone? ;)) and took us straight to the doctor…he gave us some prescription shampoo and a very fine-tooth comb (which didn’t really help with our hair…I think we ended up just breaking the comb, LOL) and it was gone fairly quickly.</p>
<p>The time our whole family got it (5 of us plus our nanny), it was so bad, I swore we would all shave our heads if it happened again. We believe it began with a pretend fireman’s helmet at a drop-in day care center. Unfortunately, we didn’t recognize the problem until at least 6 weeks later so it had a chance to spread. After that, no one in our family has put on any caps, hats, or helmets that didn’t belong to us.</p>
<p>I’m amazed that there are people still so uninformed who believe that lice have anything to do with hygiene. As Harriett said, they prefer clean hair. I just got back from a movie - Baby Mama is really cute BTW - and I thought it as soon as I felt my head touch the chair. The thing that freaks me out these days is the thought of bed bugs. They are supposed to be a nightmare to get rid of and I found myself looking for them in the many hotels my D and I stayed in for college auditions and visits.</p>
<p>what I get grossed out about are the things I can’t see in hotel rooms.</p>
<p>I mean if I was a hotel housekeeper and my mother in law wasn’t going to be inspecting- how much time am I actually going to be spending in each room?</p>
<p>Who am I kidding, I have given up trying to get her approval for my housekeeping- she has that curled lip and raised eyebrow permanently.</p>
<p>Wish I had known about the non toxic solution before. my daughter’s room mate (whom we love dearly) at boarding school got them last year. Could not find any on my daughter but did all the treatments (great fun as we had to take all her stuff out of the dorms and wash everything and treat her hair). Then 3 weeks later her room mate got them again (or still had them). so we got to do the whole process all over again. As the school was a very stressful place at the best of times it just added to the stress. Plus the 2nd time they made her move in with another girl for a month which turned out to be one of those ‘bad roommate’ experiences.</p>
<p>I actually felt quite ill afterwards. I treated my daughters hair (long hair) - then did my husbands and mine just to be safe. i felt really weird by the time I was done!</p>
<p>We had been through it when she was in elementary school. Her best friend had them really badly. Her Mom would treat her & I would treat my daughter. BF kept getting infected. Her Mom kept treating her. I kept treating my daughter. I would tell my daughter’s school and they would check the kids. BFs mom would tell her school - a private school - and the school would not get the other kids checked because “this is not *that *sort of school”. BFs mom finally called the health department on them because she was tired of her daughter being reinfected constantly. The health department checked every kid. The funniest was one mom who didn’t want her daughter checked because ‘she can’t have head lice - she’s a cheer leader’. Well she did - as did a lot of the other students. Once they all got treated it solved the repeat infestation problem!!</p>
<p>Nothing to do with cleanliness. The BF was in an almost sterile home because her baby brother had cancer and was undergoing chemo - it was probably the cleanest house in town. How easy is it to get them - well BF flew to disney world and back and Mom realized she had them when they got back - the people who sat in her seat on the plane - I’m betting they got them.</p>
<p>Wow. I’m just shaking my head. Luckily, none of the four of us has ever gotten them, for which I am eternally grateful. If we did, I’d have my DH and two Ss shave their heads, and I’d do whatever I needed to do. Maybe I’ll go to that gratitude thread and post how thankful I am . . . .</p>
<p>Well, we had to deal with that this year. Twice. As have several of my friends with kids at our elementary school. And I suspect many more people at our school as well. Up until about a year ago, I had never seen an actual louse. They are not pretty! I was pretty paranoid about it for awhile, thought about taking a towel with me to theatres to put over the back of the seat, though never quite got to the point of actually doing it.</p>
<p>Not quite as gross, but my son came home from the Scout Camporee last Sunday with ticks in his hair! It was great weather for those creatures, warm and rainy. He wasn’t the only one who had problems. Many of the boys were sporting fresh crewcuts by the Monday night meeting.</p>
<p>There’s a big outfit in NYC called Licenders that advertises they are used by all the “best” schools. They use all natural stuff (mayonnaise and vegetable oil, i think) and they come to the school and check everyone. I imagine it is quite a lucrative business.</p>
<p>^^^^^ not a new thing - that’s where the term ‘nit picker’ originates (well the mayo etc may be new).</p>
<p>I don’t think you could pay me enough!!</p>
<p>And motherdear - ticks are just as gross - though easier to get rid of. Just the thought of them burrowing their nasty selves into our bodies - shudder!! The fist time my daughter (then a toddler) got one i just freaked out - could not wait for my H to get home and deal with it - could not find tweezers anywhere. Went frantilly knocking on neighbors doors looking for tweezers - one kindly elderly neighbor took one look at me and said ‘do you want me to do it’ - i very gratefully accepted. They probably thought I was a total nut job.</p>
<p>I really think the poverty association with lice has to do with poor follow-through. I taught in a poor school where we’d send the same 4 kids to the nurse daily. The parents were very young and said they “used the shampoo” but the follow-through to pick the nits is what kills the laid eggs. The shampoo only kills the adult lice, but they’ve already laid eggs, so those have to be combed out of the hair or they’ll hatch within 2 weeks.</p>
<p>Also you have to wash all the kids’ bed linens and teddy bears in very hot water, which is expensive and hard when you need to carry it all to the public laundromat. </p>
<p>For all I know, those kids still have lice 5 years later. It just never went away for them. (First graders, second graders). They lost class time, too, seeing the nurse. We had monthly checks for the whole class throughout each school year.</p>
<p>Lice DON’T like African-American kids, the nurse said; and it’s true, these were the Caucasian kids who carried the lice forever, it seems. </p>
<p>IT was a schoolwide problem, and we had various protocols, such as requiring all the kids to zip their scarves and winter hats into their bookbags each morning, not leave them lying in cubbies or around the room. That actually helped a lot.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the kids never blamed each other. They correctly blamed the class parents.</p>
<p>My daughter had reoccurring episodes despite treatment. Finally a dermatologist told me to coat her head with Cetaphil face wash and leave in overnight. It smothers the buggers. Works great and no chemicals.</p>
<p>and I use cetaphil so have it on hand - huh. Thanks for the tip. Hope I never have to test it. Though maybe after reading this thread I will try it tonight - just in case - scratch scatch.</p>
Ahhhh, elementary school.</p>