<p>My daughter got lice when my sister took her on a bike ride along the river. She wore a rented helmet. She has super long, thick hair. We are talking five hours of nit picking. UGHHH!! The OTC treatment did not work and I didn’t want to put more toxic chemicals on her head. Therefore, we slathered her head in Cetaphil face wash, dried it with a blow dryer, put on a plastic cap and then left in on overnight. It wasn’t a quick fix, but it did work.</p>
<p>Head lice- could be worse. Was reminded of a story told to me when doing a medical school summer externship. The OB/GYN I was working with in his private practice once got the pubic kind from lice that crawled from the patient to his hairy arms above his glove. An occupational hazard I hadn’t thought of (it didn’t influence my choice of specialties, however).</p>
<p>When our family got lice we went totally natural–fine tooth comb and use lots of conditioner when combing out the lice and nits–helps the comb get through easier and it’s easier to see the nits in the background of the conditioner. Once you have combed out all visible lice, cover the hair in olive oil, then put on a shower cap plus towel and sleep that way. Olive oil washes out of hair a heck of a lot easier than petroleum jelly and will smother any lice that hatch. We did daily combing and olive oil for a week, then every two days for the next week, then slowed down and stopped. The person who recommended this to us says that none of the chemicals kill the nits–but the olive oil smothers the lice if they hatch. </p>
<p>Good luck. What a pain that was…</p>
<p>I had never heard of the Cataphil method, but it sounds pretty good. There were lice in my kids’ classrooms but we were very fortunate neither of our kids ever got it. We had drummed it into their heads not to share hats, combs or brushes and we were very lucky. </p>
<p>If you aren’t REALLY diligent, it can take many mnynweeks or even months to get rid of all of them. Our kids had the same kids bring them back to school repeatedly. The school nurse showed me a louse that she put into a pink disinfectant, it got out and was still very much alive! Creeped me out!</p>
<p>One of the families who kept bringing lice back to school had two long haired girls. I think they were unsuccessfully trying the olive oil method. Never found out details, but it may be they didn’t get rid of all the lice in the rest of the house and reinfected or weren’t sufficiently diligent with a fine enough metal comb for enough consecutive days? </p>
<p>Some folks really don’t like the scent of tea tree oil, so make sure it’s ok for you before you use too much of it.</p>