Lice

[Smokin' Ace]

Ok - I have a friend who is having a horrible time with lice in her family. Her son brought it home from daycare, and she has treated him several times, along with other members in her family. She has washed all her linens, sprayed the house, done everything that she can think of - along with combing thru each members head daily. It is driving her batty!!!! Then she read where all the lice treatments were nothing but pesticides so now she is scared she has poisoned her family!

What kind of advice do you have for my friend?? She is at her wits end!

[Singing Eagle]

My friend in Seattle swears by mayonaise - hey she says it works!

I just did a search and found this - worth a look.....

http://www.safe2use.com/nntl/n-logo.htm

I'd suggest she do a search a look at all the websites about head lice!

When I worked at Head (lice) Start, I used to have a whole lotta them sites bookmarked - but alas I am not there anymore. As you can see from ^ how I refer to it, we used to have a lot of trouble with them yucky creatures!:Mad

[Singing Eagle]

Re: Lice

Originally posted by Smokin' Ace
Ok - I have a friend who is having a horrible time with lice in her family. Her son brought it home from daycare, and she has treated him several times, along with other members in her family. She has washed all her linens, sprayed the house, done everything that she can think of - along with combing thru each members head daily. It is driving her batty!!!! Then she read where all the lice treatments were nothing but pesticides so now she is scared she has poisoned her family!

What kind of advice do you have for my friend?? She is at her wits end!

Not her nits end eh!!!!!!???? sorry couldn't resist! :D

[Smokin' Ace]

Thank you so much for that information!

I have passed it on to her - she is extremely thankful!

:)

[Mato Winyan]

Our health department here says that NIX brand is alot better than Rid.... also they say there is a type of lice that is becoming immune to the pesticide, so super lice...

Anyway... tell her to hang in there.. this will pass. ;)

[Smokin' Ace]

I have told her - I think she is going to order that LICE R GONE stuff - I will keep you guys updated as to how well it works.

[alamosaurus]

There are pesticides and then there are pesticides. Most
anti-louse shampoos probably use pyrethrum or one of its
synthetic derivatives. Pyretrum is made from the dried and
ground-up flower heads of a certain species of chrysanthemum.
It is relatively non-toxic to warm blooded animals, but is deadly
to cold blooded ones such as insects, fish, and reptiles; it acts
like nerve gas to them. But it is bad news for people with
allergies; when the flowers are ground up, they are ground up
pollen and all. It has a number of synthetic derivitives and
analogs--allethrin, promethrin--that should avoid this problem.

On the other hand, organic phosphates (e.g. Malathion) and
chlorinated hydrocarbons (e.g. DDT) are much more toxic. Some
of these chemicals (e.g. Tetraethyl pyrophosphate) are so toxic
that a nearly microscopic droplet on your skin can kill you within
minutes. Progably the least toxic of the organic phosphates is
Malathion. The problem with Malathion is that while it is
relatively safe when used alone, there is a synergistic effect
when it is used in combination with other pesticides. Its
toxicity is magnified many times. (See Rachel Carson,
SILENT SPRING).

[lightening_woman]

lice

another suggestion is olive oil over night kills and makes nits come out easy.

[Tsiniti]

My daughter always had fine hair, and I always had to blow dry it, to look decent, when her daycare had lice problems she was the ONLY one who didn't get them, I talked to her pediatrition and she said, that blow drying the hair was probably what saved us the problem!

That the lice and nits can't handle the heat! So for years we blew dry my daughter's hair ... I passed the info on in Kindergarten, and others throughout the years, it works!! Then last summer during Girl Scout camp, Miss Know it All decided she didn't need to use a blow dryer any more ... after all she's 16 and knows EVERYTHING, and Mom knows absolutely NOTHING .... and came home with head lice!! We used a generic shampoo that recommded use again in two weeks time, and made sure she blew dry her hair (even recommended it on the shampoo) and no more lice! We also for insurance used a lice spray in her room (we won't discuss the land of never never, things go in and you never see them again)

By the way, Mom really did know best, and Miss Priss is blow drying her scalp at least everytime she washes her hair!!
:D

[Tsiniti]

I had to come back ... head lice were the least of my horrors in Day Care days .... when my daughter was in Kindergarten she came to me crying that she itched and burned in her "area" well I looked, and was horrified!! My Baby had WORMS!! I called her Dr's office, and got a pot luck Doc (When you call after hrs it's Pot Luck who you get) He laughed at me, and said he bet she was in Day Care or Kindergarten which I said yes, he said it's normal, and I squealed NOT FOR MY DAUGHTER, well after laughing again, he said he'd call in a perscription to our local pharmacy she could take before going to school the next day ... ONE pill was $10 !!

But it worked, and I notified the school, if she had them, it stood to reason someone gave them to her, as it is only transmitted from one person to another .... I fussed, and made sure all the Parents of that age group were notified!! We all got together and made sure the carpets were steam cleaned, and came in and taught all the kids about proper hygene. One poor child actually had crust on his scalp ... not to mention what he smelled like, but we got the majority of the parents cooperation on keeping the kiddoes clean, and worm free!

I wouldn't wish that on anyone! Teach them to PLEASE wash their hands after pottying!! sign, ok now I feel better, I have warned another group of potential victums .... :Angel2

[Smokin' Ace]

Oh I bet that was horrible! You poor thing! Good thing you took corrective steps to make sure it didn't happen again!

Blow drying huh? Now that is interesting! :Thumbs

[NDNKIDZ]

yes, ace blow drying is the key to keeping lice away, they hate the heat.:)

[Inuvialuk]

When I was in University we also had lice for 3 months. It drove me batty. I had a the cleanest house in the whole neighbourhood because I washed the sheets daily, scrubbed and vacuumed and sprayed. I also put anything that could not be washed that had contact with me in the freezer for 24-48 hours. Extreme cold also kills the lice.

It turned out that my son kept reinfecting us by hugging and roughhousing with his friend, who had had it for a few months and the family had never heard of lice and didn't know what they looked like. Needless to say, they were lousy. Well, once everyone was cleaned up we finally got rid of it. I did prefer NIX though.

I know that up north the treatment used to be kerosene oil, after you shaved the kids head, but I would not recommend that treatment.

There is a strain of super lice out there and a trip to the doctors would not be amiss as I believe there is a treatment for these but I would recommend exhausting all your options first because like all the other nasty infections out there, overuse of this stuff is what caused the bugs to be resistent to these in the first place.

And you thought the human race was smart.

[wyo_rose]

Well, we must have super rez lice here, cuz they seem to be immune to Rid and NIX. My daughter and I both work at schools here and ended up with bugs this year.

We used everything, cleaned and sprayed everything, and had a HARD time getting rid of them. Finally my daughter bought an electronic comb at WalMart - a RobiComb - and we're finally lice free. You just have to use the comb for a few minutes everyday. Piece of cake! We were practically turning into gorillas going thru each other's hair everyday.

I'm going to tell our school nurse to invest in a couple, cuz it's also a lice detector!

[Inuvialuk]

I am glad to hear about other ways of detecting and getting rid of them because in about 3 years or so my risk of infection goes up when my holy terror goes to school in that time.

thanks for the tips.