Lice Update

Image by seanmcmenemy via Flickr

It’s way too early in our lice odyssey to say whether it’s over, but I wanted to round up some of what we have tried, and what we’re planning to do.

Treatments:

• smothering their hair in conditioner and putting a shower cap on their heads for about 8 hours at a time, then rinsing out the conditioner and combing their heads.  This was fairly painless, and clearly got some good results, but didn’t do the entire job, though we repeated it three times.
• a mixture of olive and tea tree oil (the recipe for dilution found here), which sat on their heads for four hours under shower caps and then was combed out.  This was the messiest of what we’ve done so far, and once the combing was over, it was fairly difficult to completely rinse all the oil out of their hair
• a “hippie” treatment kit, including combing
• a “chemical” treatment kit, including combing
• washing all their bed items, including stuffed animals, pillows, sheets and blankets, and allowing only a fitted sheet, blanket, pillow in a case, and one animal to sleep with each night, as all items get laundered daily, We also washed their coats and threw away their hairbrushes.

Instead of the combs included in the kits, we’ve been using the Lice Meister comb, which comes highly recommended by our friends, as well as many other sources.

I also talked to my school nurse, who recommended giving their scalps a break for a week and then retreating this coming weekend, especially with the tea tree oil treatment. She also very kindly checked my own head, which is lice-free so far.

I feel confident about everything we are doing, and I do think that the most important aspect is the combing, repeatedly and thoroughly, to get as much out of their scalps and hair as possible. I’m hoping to avoid the horror stories you hear about people dealing with this for months, but if it happens, it happens.

As you can imagine, this has been rather preoccupying, but this weekend, I’m going to focus my attention back on the holiday season, since I have cookies to bake, we haven’t gotten our tree yet, and I’ve not bought one present yet. Wish me luck!

Related articles

• No more nit-picking? FDA approves lice treatment (today.msnbc.msn.com)
• Head lice (bupa.com.au)