Headlice Tips

[My3kids]

Hi

Just reading up on another thread and decided to start this so here it is.
I and I'm sure alot of other parents would be intersted in tips or advice on headlice. I know it's a touchy subject but let's face it, every child will have nit's at some stage or more through there school life. So far this year (TOUCH WOOD) I have been lucky but last year was devasting I had trouble after trouble, which in the end cause my children to have a very itch, dried out scalp. The chemist informed me of a oatmeal shampoo to bring the PH levels back up! BUt information and tips like that would be great to see. Also if anyone has a tip on getting the eggs out, because my DS hair is so fine that the comb still wouldn't get them out might help next time!:fingerscrossed: There is no next time though!


My rountine this year is

Friday - Hair wash with shampoo & conditioner
Sunday - Conditioner her hair while it is dry & comb a headlice comb
Monday to Friday - I do her hair in the morning I spray it wilth water & tea tree oil put her hair up than hair spray it throughlywith hair spray! She has been warned if she pulls her hair out, shares a hat or allows anyone to brush her hair with there hair brush I will be forced to shave her head (I know it's mean and I would never do it but it works)

[pumpkin]

i've heard forntline though i haven't used it.

most of the chemical ones and natural ones are making the nits more resistent to them so i would say nothing would truely work to actually prevent it,iykwim

[Faithcomesinnumbers]

I can't stand head lice. I have had them really bad and so has DD. My SIL had to do her 5 children every week for almost two years only to find out they had them again 1 day later. Both of us have tried nearly everyone. She heard that Kerosene worked. So all 8 of us tried it, though I was reluctant to try it on DD as she was younger than 2. But hey presto it worked for all of us. We haven't had them since. :yelclap:

[MelanieP]

Hi

The tea tree oil should be working, lice hate it:barf:

What you are doing is exactly what you should be doing, keeping her hair up, spraying it with hairspray etc. There is also an electric comb on the market now

There is a product called Wild Child and that is supposed to be fabulous too.

Personally, I would be having a word to the school, it seems ridiculous that there are that many letters going out in regards to headlice, I'd be really, really annoyed if I were you spending all that money on treatment and it keeps coming back and back and back. There are obviously some parents out there not treating their children and they keep passing it on.

Perhaps wash her hair a couple of times a week with the tea tree shampoo, there is a cheapy at Woolies which we use and we haven't had a case of them yet.

And lastly, which I am sure you would be doing, make sure all bedding, towels etc is washed in very, very hot water, this will kill any eggs which may start to harvest on the linen.

I hope you get some success soon, in the meantime, write a letter to the school, god I'd be so furious:banghead:

HTH

[My3kids]

Have spoken to school about it, but they said they aren't aloud to check the children hair or say anything to the child or parent for legal reason, all they can do is hand out these red letters to the whole class and hopefully they might do something about it. It's a shame that a few parents don't care and let it get out of hand atleast at the moment I have it under control but last year it was shocking, I was told that the lice can't live once there off the head, but there eggs which are the nits (or I may have it the wrong way here) can hatch up to 7 days later of treating the hair that's why they say to condition so you smuther the nits so they don't hatch is that right.

[My3kids]

I can't stand head lice. I have had them really bad and so has DD. My SIL had to do her 5 children every week for almost two years only to find out they had them again 1 day later. Both of us have tried nearly everyone. She heard that Kerosene worked. So all 8 of us tried it, though I was reluctant to try it on DD as she was younger than 2. But hey presto it worked for all of us. We haven't had them since. :yelclap:

Did you find that stripped all the oil out of your hair, and make your scalp dry?
Isn't it flameable?

[Faithcomesinnumbers]

My3kids,

It did make our hair stink really bad but didn't dry our hair out. But both SIL and I were sick of it. I mean this was ongoing for 2 years everyday except Sundays. We were at our wits end because we had tried every thing but nothing seemed to work. My concern was that it was flameable and I was scared that something could happen as we both smoked and DD was very young. My nits were that big that they looked like fleas. The eggs will hatch in 7-14 days later and that is why they recommend you do a second coat.

[claireandbailey]

When i was in primary school i used to get head lice all the time and really badly. my mum tried absolutely everything in my hair. but the best one that we used was recomended from another mother and it was made from oranges and smelt real citrusy (sp? i dont even think thats a word) but it was GREAT!!!!! i know you can still get it in the chemist and dont think its very expensive. and it doesnt have any chemicals.

[nkenward]

My stepdaughter always has headlice - ever since I met her. But I think you also have to be aware that bedding, and furniture and carpets will also carry eggs & lice.

Unfortunately I remember having my head checked at school and as much as it was a horrible thing to have done I never once had lice!!!! Why is it some mothers have this thing about having complete control and not allowing adequate measures to be taken at school anymore? I suppose in most cases their children will be the ones causing the problems. Yet the parents that do the right thing have to suffer the consequences. It just doesn't seem just!!!!

I see my stepdaughter continuously itch her head - it must drive her crazy.

Common parents - wake up to yourself!!! Allow the nurses back into the school and lets try to fix the problem.

[pumpkin]

be aware that bedding, and furniture and carpets will also carry eggs & lice.
sorry but the actual lice cannot live without blodd and therefore only survive for a few hours if they are not on someones head. i will get the info if you want.

[Frazzled]

Have spoken to school about it, but they said they aren't aloud to check the children hair or say anything to the child or parent for legal reason, all they can do is hand out these red letters to the whole class and hopefully they might do something about it

Hey there mumof3... I am a teacher and I don't know why your school would tell you this. Their duty of care is to the total school community and have every right to send home children with head lice and contact parents. Just like when child care centres don't let your kids go with conjunctivitis... Their only legal responsibility as far as privacy is concerned, is not to disclose to anyone who the 'offending' child is. We send kids home all the time...


Of course you can't check hair, cause you can't touch but when you are walking around the classroom, you see them in the kids hair more often than not - or the scratching etc. It is also very good for parents to notify the school that their child is suffering with the little critter and thats usually when the letters go home. At my school we have about three outbreaks a year.

Hope this helps!

[cwsmum]

If your child was constantly getting headlice could you report it to the health department, like they do if there is an outbreak of something like whooping cough?

I remember the orange smelling stuff that claireandbailey mentioned. I think it was called 'orange medic', but I could be wrong, I haven't had to deal with headlice for years :)

[Frazzled]

If your child was constantly getting headlice could you report it to the health department, like they do if there is an outbreak of something like whooping cough?

I don't think so as it is not a 'serious' health issue and is not deadly. I htink thought that if we had a student with recurring headlice and the parents seemed to not be treating the problem, we would be within our rights to do a DOCS report as it is a welfare issue, IYKWIM?

[pumpkin]

I don't think so as it is not a 'serious' health issue and is not deadly. I htink thought that if we had a student with recurring headlice and the parents seemed to not be treating the problem, we would be within our rights to do a DOCS report as it is a welfare issue, IYKWIM?


unfortunately i htink you just contradicted yourself in the post.

by saying it is not a serious health issue and then by saying the school should contact docs. if its not serious then docs will laugh at you as it is niits how many schools hav cases of nits continuosly throughout the year .pmsl

what happens to the ones who do treat their kids hair but they get recurrent infestations? how do you (as you are only hteir teacher) know that theya re actually being treated fair enough the parents might say yes but how do you know beyond resonable doubt?

come on docs have a job to do worrying about the kids who really need it not the ones who get head lice on a recurrent basis as some schools have it run rampent. are you going to do the paper work involved and then when the child is proven to be treated yet still gets them from others and gets retreated, are you going tobe sued by a parent who is doing the right thing and therefore should not have been reported in the first place???come on this is 2006.

and yes you as a parent can make a complaint to the health dept or to qld education about the school not dealing with the problem and with recurrent outbreaks, they do ring the school and find out how many kids have had it over the last however many months. i know because my sister in law did it with their school

and sorry she kept treating their hair

[JodieC]

be aware that bedding, and furniture and carpets will also carry eggs & lice.
sorry but the actual lice cannot live without blodd and therefore only survive for a few hours if they are not on someones head. i will get the info if you want.

Thats correct.
A few years ago my DD seemed to constantly have head lice, infact i dont think we ever got rid of it until we moved schools. In the end chemicals were just becoming expensive and werent really working.

Plain conditioner and 2 different sets of lice combs did it for us.

Every 3 days i would condition her hair and use the large metal comb to get out as much as i could, then twice a day i would use a plastic lice comb, it never got the eggs out but got out the crawlies. She never had them again after that

[CrazyBeautiful]

I can't stand head lice. I have had them really bad and so has DD. My SIL had to do her 5 children every week for almost two years only to find out they had them again 1 day later. Both of us have tried nearly everyone. She heard that Kerosene worked. So all 8 of us tried it, though I was reluctant to try it on DD as she was younger than 2. But hey presto it worked for all of us. We haven't had them since. :yelclap:
Kerosene was used in the 60's and 70's to treat head lice. Mum said that kids never had repeat episodes of head lice after treatment.

[zactyl]

I've been conditioning and combing my daughters hair, haven't found anything yet, but it's reassuring for me! :laughing:
The NSW Health Website has some good info about Treatment for Headlice. (http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/headlice/treatment/index.html)
DON'T use kerosene! :eek:

[Frazzled]

unfortunately i htink you just contradicted yourself in the post.

by saying it is not a serious health issue and then by saying the school should contact docs. if its not serious then docs will laugh at you as it is niits how many schools hav cases of nits continuosly throughout the year .pmsl

what happens to the ones who do treat their kids hair but they get recurrent infestations? how do you (as you are only hteir teacher) know that theya re actually being treated fair enough the parents might say yes but how do you know beyond resonable doubt?

come on docs have a job to do worrying about the kids who really need it not the ones who get head lice on a recurrent basis as some schools have it run rampent. are you going to do the paper work involved and then when the child is proven to be treated yet still gets them from others and gets retreated, are you going tobe sued by a parent who is doing the right thing and therefore should not have been reported in the first place???come on this is 2006.

and yes you as a parent can make a complaint to the health dept or to qld education about the school not dealing with the problem and with recurrent outbreaks, they do ring the school and find out how many kids have had it over the last however many months. i know because my sister in law did it with their school

and sorry she kept treating their hair

Maybe i did not explain myself properly, but as this is a thread about headlice, thats what I stuck to. We would only notify if there were other issues presenting themselves also, eg. consistent uncleanliness etc etc and if there was strong evidence that the parent/s were not treating the case at all and the school has been in contact with them about the matter. Usually if parents can't be bothered to treat their children's headlice, then you can be sure that they aren't doing a lot of other things they sould be too. Not really a laughing matter.

Hope this clears up your confusion. As I am in NSW, I don't know what happens with QLD.

[Twoterrorsmum]

Hi Kim, When my son used to go to daycare he ended up with head lice three times. One time I even had it at the same time as him, it makes you feel so dirty!!! I tried the chemical remedies from the chemists and found they didn't work. I read a brochure from the health dept. about treatment and I used their method which is to rub any type of hair conditioner through dry hair until wet, then using a metal comb, comb through the hair to pull the eggs out. Wipe the comb each time on a paper towel or similar until you have done the whole head and taken all the eggs out. It sounds gross but sometimes I had to pull the eggs off the hair with my nail to get get them out. Repeat this process for 10 days. After the 10 days you can repeat again every few days just to make sure. This method was the only one that got rid of it for my son and I.Eeeewwww!! lt makes you feel itchy just talking about it doesn't it?

[Ruby Slippers]

My little girl the other day had The mothership Nit
I was standing up just about to brush her hair and then i thought what the hell is that i picked it up and wrapped it up in a tissue and threw it away :eek: so then we all treated our hair , i can't stand it :mad: .

[Kaycee]

I am usually a natural-remedy-type-of-gal but have found that the heavy artillary (chemically speaking) the least messy and most effective, especailly when treating 3 kids at a time.

[xkwzit]

Ahhh Ruby slippers

"Mothership Nit" LMAO

Thanks a bunch hon, I feel less itchy now :thumbsup:

[kiwibird27]

Buy the tea tree shampoo and conditioner from Thursdays Plantation at your pharmacy as a prevention, Use vinegar to loosen eggs, Use the chemical stuff u get from the pharmacy to treat it, and repeat as required, put girls (i mean long)hair up as much as possible at school, don't wash it too often - headlice love really clean hair, You can also use a tree tree spray each day which can really help

Can't count the number of times I've treated headlice with different famlies - This all works!!!!!!!!!!!
\

Don't use frontline - or kerosene or petrol - you would have to be CRAZY!!!!!

[3cherubs]

I use a tea tree oil with water in a spray bottle as a preventative measure for my daughter when she is at daycare. It has worked so far....

[mythreelittlemonkeys]

my stepdaughter constantly has them...but actually it is partly because their mother bit lax at doing - she won't do my step son's hair...he kicks up too much fuss and my poor stepdaughter therefore keeps on getting reinfested...we get rid of them when they with us - both of them get treated and all the bedlinen washed etc...I think this also where there mother misses...I hate it as I always worry I will get them too...I have long very curly dark hair and absolute noghtmare to self adminster and my husband finds it difficult to check my hair - but so far I only got them the first time she came home with them...I found the only thing that works to be fair is combing again and again - we have used all the products from KP something...to Tea Tree aplications...we now have a combing (not killing) solution called Fried Lice...and with combing reguarly seems to keep the suckers out once you have lice bombed (we use Wild Child).
I remember having headlice when kid and we were not allowed to go to school or had to have like the stinkiest lotion on hour heads at school all day - so everyone always knew you had...but to be fair so usually did most of the class! ha ha
My poor stepdaughter so patient and takes it really well, esp as we went through phase when everytime she came to stay we had to treat - must be so horrid for her...they call them spiders!!
TOuch wood she has moved ot a new school and I think my husband had fierce words with their mother and the last couple of times they stayed I have not noticed any or any of the tell tale itching...
AND YES I AM ITCHING NOW AS I TYPE!!

[Illusional]

The myth that they prefer clean hair over dirty hair - has been shown as being just that.
Nits don't discriminate between dirty and clean hair - they only care about the blood supply.

Eucalyptus oil and water as a spray can be more effective for some people rather than tea tree oil.

My eldest daughters half sister was constantly reinfected from school - and we had to resort to pulling each egg out by hand because it was getting too expensive to treat her with products that werent working.
My kids have had them once that I can remember.. both at the same time last year.. I treated them a normal product from the chemist, retreated - then use eucalyptus and water every now and then.

I know thats not a normal scenario - Im extremely lucky - but I see plenty of parents who arent.

There is a brilliant shampoo treatment in NZ that removes all nits and eggs in one wash .. not sure if we get it here though, Ill find out if I remember.

[bubs_and_us]

Dettol works great. :thumbsup: if you shampoo your hair with normal shampoo and then put dettol (1 cap diluted in water) through your hair followed by conditioner. do this every day. it doesnt strip the hair of natural oils, and doesnt smell too bad (not as bad as kerosene would lol)

when i was at school, i did this every time i washed my hair and i didnt get nits again... (i started doing this after i got nits for 10 weeks in a row :banghead: ) they make you feel so dirty, even though they like clean hair...

[Cupcake]

As I sit here scratching my head :eek: I knew I should not have opened this thread :p
I am super nit paranoid my DD has not had them yet but when she goes to daycare or a play centre I spray her hair with leave in conditioner, her daycare teacher told me it makes there hair slippery & the little critters will just slide off :fingerscrossed:
I dont know what I will do when she brings them home & shares them with my mane of hair :mad:

[Terrible2+1cutie]

My sister in laws kids have had headlice alot this year, the other day she found them in her kids hair and realised she had run out of the proper headlice stuff so she sprayed aeroguard on a live headlice to see if it killed them and sure enough it did so she sprayed it on just before her kids went to bed and next morning washed there hair. She swears by it now.

Catherine

Mum to Blaze and Bailey

[jessgray]

when i caught headlice off my sister (few yrs ago now) i discovered i was allergic to a chemical found in most of the chemical headlice treatments and now whenever i have to treat myself i have to go buy a natural one it smells like oranges and makes your hair really soft :D so i like it plus i dont end up with itchy rashes or sores on my head :(
does anyone else feel like they need to scratch their head just from reading this thread lmao