Lousy day

[ailbhe]

Poor Linnea is eating biscuits and crying, because I just fine-combed her hair. And the part she doesn't realise is I didn't use the finest comb, so it will be worse next time, when I've found the best fine-comb. She has raw scratched spotty parts behind her ears and at the back of her neck, and lots of brown dirt stuck to her hair - I don't know whether that's louseshit or eggcases, because eggcases always looked white on my dark hair but perhaps they look brown on fair hair.

She's also very very upset that I put the lice down the drain. She wants me to find a kinder way of dealing with them. They might get lost and not be able to find each other again. Their mothers will be upset if they can't find the babies. Stop it!

I only found four adults and lots and lots of juveniles, so it looks like a fairly recent infestation, so it ought to be easy enough to keep on top of. I only had one adult in my own hair.

I have a passionate hatred of lice. Until I was eleven, I sat next to a child who was never treated for headlice, and I got finecombed and covered in foul-smelling insecticide constantly throughout the school term. My hair was unusually fine, and very long, and very very thick (it's much thinner now, though just as fine).

I'm really angry at the lice for what they did to my daughter. Her neck looks sore. She has little spots of blood on her scalp. And they left dirt in her lovely hair.

Comments

[rmc28]

I have a feeling that lice infestation is what might finally cause me to go to short hair (again), when the time comes. It was horrible enough delousing long hair when my mother was doing it for me and I was considerably smaller.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Kate has been infested twice & the cases / gick were a pale brown / grey colour on her blonde hair.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

Sympathy to you both. Thank goodness Colin hasn't had them yet (lots of warnings from nursery and school, but he has short hair and is very anti putting his head together with other children, both of which probably help!) but they are one of my worst nightmares and I bought the nitcomb before he was even born.

alison ...

[(Anonymous)]

The Nitty Gritty comb is very good - worth the money - way way better than those plastic ones. Pulls most of the eggs off too, so the whole cycle is over much more quickly.

At least they're easy to spot on Linnea's hair, and her hair is long enough to tie up now.

alison ...

[(Anonymous)]

And squashing them is the only way to go - that satisfying 'crack' is the only (teeny tiny!) redeeming feature of headlice. I wouldn't put them down a drain - they can live for days in anything and will probably crawl out and infect your neighbours. (What do you mean, I'm sounding rather irrational now???)

[laura0141.livejournal.com]

I hate lice too and have great sympathies for both of you (and Emer and Rob if they get them too.) I too have fine hair but lots of it but, if you add curls (which I do) fine-combing is just *awful*.

[webhill.livejournal.com]

My sympathies. I swear next time this happens to us I am bringing home Frontline spray (the product for use on dogs, not the premise spray) and using it. My colleagues in Hong Kong and Australia have been doing it with no problems and I really don't care any more. I'm done with manual delousing and chemicals that don't f-ing work.

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

The first time my daughter got them - around 17 years ago now - I was at my parents' miles from anywhere, the local pharmacy closed at lunchtime, it was mid-afternoon when I noticed them, I ended up going to an organic/wholefoods type place and buying some flea/tick/louse shampoo for dogs and using that on her. It helped - along with me and mother taking it in turns to go through picking out the eggs and lice.

Oh, and I agree with the satisfying crack... it's actually the best way to tell whether that egg you just found on a random check is still viable or a dead empty casing - no crack, it's already hatched and possibly left over from the last infestation..

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

Shudder.
self, son and daughter with almost waist length hair - we've been there and done it all several times.
A nit comb that is metal, or at least with metal teeth is essential.
After years of tears with nasty chemicals that set off asthma attacks I moved to an oil remedy.
Any sort of lightish oil - grapenut, etc, then per 20ml of oil add 4 drops of tea tree oil, to kill the lice and help heal the scalp, 4 drops of geranium oil to heal the scalp and 2 drops of rosemary to condition and make a pleasant smell. I used to use this at double strength for adults.

Massage this in well and comb through. I used to leave it in overnight, too, just wash in the morning, or whenever.
Despite what 'they' say, headlice can survive off a human host for quite a long while, so pillow cases, cushions, woollen coats, cuddlies, etc need to be temperature treated - either a hot wash, steaming or freezing - unwashable cuddlies can be wrapped in plastic and put in the freezer, or outside if a frost is due. In winter I used to put the towels outside to freeze overnight before washing them. Also ensure you wear a plastic apron and roll up your sleeves AND remove and wash whatever you're wearing while treating. It is quite possible for the little varmints to get on to your clothe, climb up your sweater and into your hair.
Like I said, I've been there SO many times.

drat, I'm sitting here scratching now!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Ohhh yes. Oil and metal comb make any kind of fine combing massively easier. Plastic ones are made of the same material that is used to demonstrate static electricity in schools...

[wingedkami.livejournal.com]

Last time we had lice I bought Full Marks, which turned out to be some kind of oil and a metal comb. I think it's meant to dehydrate the nits, but the oil made the fine combing much less unpleasant.

The clothing issue can be avoided by treating while naked, if that's an option.

alison ...

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yes, they can live for ages - when we were infested 2 years ago, I did LOTS of reading - one suggested method is to cover your hair in Vaseline, or olive oil so they suffocate. So there'd been some research done on this by real live Scientists (TM) ;-) and they found out that lice can live, completely submerged in olive oil, for 48 hours! So if you try the Vaseline route, make sure it's for several days :)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

All good luck. I am so sorry you and she have to deal with this.

Re: Lousy day

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

she is a budding litle buddhist, eh. :)

*sympathy*. it's been a long time since i had to deal with headlice, but i still remember it,

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

Eww, I hate lice tooooooo! And my mom is bug-phobic to a pretty extreme degree, so lice also recall the trauma we could tell she was going through when we had lice. Poor dear.