<p>His girlfriend moved in to her apartment at college a week before labor day. He spent one night there this weekend and 2 nights last weekend. He just told me that she had been itching since not long after moving in. She thought it was the water. She went to the nurse today and it is lice. She has long curly hair.</p>
<p>He has very short, straight, thick hair. I guess you call it a buzz cut, butn ot shaved, maybe 1/4 inch or so? He has no symptoms of it and I will check him when he gets home from work tonight.</p>
<p>He heard lice don’t like thick hair, I hope he’s right. (thick meaning a lot of hair.)</p>
<p>Is there a reasonable chance he doesn’t have them? I am getting him the shampoo tonight no matter what I find. His bedding is in the washer on hot right now and his topper is in the dryer on hi. hoping it doesnt start a fire!</p>
<p>As a school nurse for the past 13 years, I’ve seen numerous cases of head lice. I’ve seen it in long hair, short hair, thin hair, thick hair, etc. Only once in 13 years have I had an African American student with head lice. Your son’s girlfriend should definitely get someone to help her with her treatment as it would be virtually impossible to get all the nits out herself. The most important thing is ensuring ALL nits are removed from the hair. The problem is not resolved until all nits are gone! My understanding is that it is a very tedious chore. Lice crawl … they don’t hop or fly. For those items that cannot be laundered, vacuum well, including car seats and head rests. You can purchase Nix or Rid spray to use on furniture, too. Be sure that brushes and combs are not shared. Hats, head bands, stuffed animals and other items can be placed in a large plastic bag and sealed tightly for a week or two. Head lice can survive off the human body for a day or so. Re-checking the head every 2-3 days for several weeks and removing nits will help prevent re-infestation. Good luck!</p>
<p>She will probably need help with her things. It will be a tedious chore for her by herself. I had 3 long-haired girls, and we cut one pretty short just to minimize the amount of hair we’d have to go through with a lice comb.</p>
<p>In that respect, you’re lucky where your son’s hair is concerned!</p>
<p>Because he has the buzz cut, it won’t be NEAR as much of a chore as it would be with a head-full of hair. Simply fewer places for lice/nits to BE. </p>
<p>BUT, SHE has to go through the whole thing with bedding, and all that long curly hair, or they will BOTH wind up having them again.</p>
<p>Believe me:
Use Rid and NOT Nix. Nix does NOT kill live nits and ALL the eggs (plus it is very expensive).
Since Nix does not kill ALL the eggs, your darling lice will be back. Part of the reason is people think that “it’s supposed to kill live lice and eggs”–which it does not. at least totally.
Rid kills live nits and is cheaper. No, it doesn’t do eggs but there is an answer to that. And it has to do with the COMB.
So: Do the RID and get a VERY fine lice comb. NOT the one that comes in the box.
Use a fine STEEL LICE COMB like Licemeister. They aren’t cheap (9 dollars).
After the RID shampoo–do the hair comb starting behind the ears (where lice love to live). Make sure you clean the comb after each swipe. Big time. Keep going. It’s tedious but you can get rid of lice in one wonderful swipe. DO NOT USE LESS THAN THE FINEST STEEL COMB.</p>
<p>After having been through this with my two girls, and by virtue of sharing brushes, myself, your DS’s girlfriend has my sympathy. Lice were making the rounds in all of the north Dallas schools and private schools when my kids were little. We went through several rounds of it and it was a huge pain, not to mention it totally creeped me out.</p>
<p>Those things are toxic, plus pften the lice are resistant to things like RID.
D had lice when she lent her riding helmet at the barn.
The only thing we had success with was using a small comb and lavender oil & shampoo.
Anything aromatic works, but we hoped the oil would smother them too.
[Pohala</a> | News](<a href=“http://www.pohalaclinic.com/news/?p=41]Pohala”>http://www.pohalaclinic.com/news/?p=41)</p>
<p>My girls have VERY thick hair, and D1 got them from sharing combs at school in 2nd grade. In the end we had to cut her hair short… we just could not get all the eggs out. Fortunately my hairdresser of many years was sympathetic and let her come in for a haircut in spite of this “known” problem.</p>
<p>No such luck. I have very thick hair and that just made it all that much more of a pain. DH had to go through all that with the nit comb. I told him I felt like we were a pair of sweet chimpanzees (I’d seen films of chimps going through each other’s hair looking for ?). He admitted he’d never envisioned going through his bride’s thick lustrous hair with a nit comb.</p>
<p>Ask your doctor for one of the new lice treatments or for Elimite, which is a stronger preparation used for scabies. Apply to dry or only slightly damp hair (lice ‘clamp down’ when exposed to water), saturate the hair and scalp with the treatment and leave in place overnight. Wash bed linens in hot water and dry with maximum heat. ‘Nits’ on hair follicles are dead if they are more than 2cm from the scalp. Don’t mistake scalp flakes for nits: the latter will be tightly adhered to the hair.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to use toxic pesticides there are alternatives: saturate the hair and scalp with petroleum jelly and leave in place overnight (it will take weeks to get the petrolatum out of their hair) or saturate the hair and scalp with mayonnaise and leave in place overnight (your children will never eat mayonnaise again). Neither of these methods is foolproof.</p>
<p>In some communities there are special lice treatment clinics.</p>
<p>Lice, like pinworms, do not discriminate on the basis of income, class, or race.</p>
<p>Not rich enough–you’re right. Nits are the eggs and lice are lice. Sorry. It doesn’t change any of my advice. You itch all the same.
It’s ALL in the comb. No matter what you use as initial agent to kill the lice and eggs---- Get a metal NARROW lice comb–sold separately. DO NOT rely on any plastic comb that comes with shampoo.</p>
<p>The RID I bought came with a double sided metal comb. Walmart brand was $5 cheaper, but it had plastic combs so I had bought the RID for the comb (same chemical). One side had tighter teeth than the other. His hair is thick texture and straight, but I used the tight side anyway.</p>
<p>I found ONE adult alive before the RID and I think one brown egg. He did the RID and in the comb out I might have found 2 very small (dead) guys. That was it. His hair is only an inch long and even though it is thick and there is a lot of it, there is a lot of white scalp visible between each hair. I didnt see anything. Washed his sheets and pillowcases and vacuumed his room. Walmart didnt have the spray for the floor etc. I looked with the RID and with the RAID and bug stuff. They had a bedbug spray, which I have read you cant really buy spray that will work on bedbugs.</p>
<p>Do you think we are pretty safe? Ill have him treat next week again but I really didnt see anything. Tomorrow he was getting a haircut anyway, so his inch long hair will be back to half an inch.</p>
<p>Don’t forget the backpack if that went with him to GF’s…</p>
<p>And he’ll have to keep checking. It’s tough to know where the lice came from (her apartment, the apartment next door, the hallway, or did she bring them from home) so it’s difficult to know if the lice have been extinguished. </p>
<p>A neighbor with three boys had so many bouts of it one year, that they just automatically dropped backpacks and stripped in the garage for quite a few months!</p>
<p>So sorry. twice my son got lice from a long haired gal in 1st and 2nd grade. We had to use a school nurse for his hair and mine, in order for him to return to school. All of our sheets, towels, etc got washed. Furniture and rugs had to get sprayed. (The second time this happened, from same girl, I was ready to sue!!!)</p>
<p>splashmom speaks words of wisdom. this will be a pain for her and your son.</p>
<p>We had a round of this a few years back, both kids and I. D brought it home but it took me awhile to catch on since she was old enough to take care of her own hair and I’d never had them nor had the kids. So when I finally realized what was going on, she had a lot. </p>
<p>The lice shampoo took care of S and I but i still had to comb with the expensive comb for about 3 weeks - every day - to get them all gone. D’s didn’t go with the regular shampoo and I got scared about repeat applications of poison on her head so I combed her hair twice a day with, as I recall, a ton of conditioner, and used diluted tea tree oil and a shower cap twice, that did it.</p>
<p>I put tea tree oil in our shampoo for several months afterwards with the understanding that it would deter them from returning. Don’t know if it was that or not but we were one event and done, they haven’t returned, now some 8 years later.</p>
<p>Obviously all bedding was washed, clothing, etc. I think I moved a lot of things into plastic bags for several days since as pointed out, they can’t live without people for more than a day or so.</p>