More info on Lice

This is for the few that asked me what is really involved when trying to get rid of lice, since we are still dealing with it......

It is different for everyone depending on how soon you catch it and how short/long your hair is. Everyone should fully wash all bedding, couches, carpets, stuffed animals, clothes, spraying down the mattresses and anything else the kid comes in contact with. After you bag all the items, don't forget to change your clothes too and get them washed. This is also a good idea to do if you know your kids have been in contact with someone that has lice.

Now for the painfully hard part...

If you actually GET lice you need to treat the hair. For boys, if you are willing, you can shave their head, use medicated shampoo on them and you should be good. But you still want to rewash any bedding they sleep on that night to be sure its gone. For girls, and those who don't want a shaved head, you need to use the medicated shampoo. When the hair is still wet, you take the handy dandy lice comb and proceed to comb out their hair strand by strand (note: its really hard to do this with fake nails). Adult lice are about the size of sesame seeds and are mostly white. The younger lice are about half that size and even harder to see. Eggs (nits) are even smaller and stick on the hair itself. The lice look like little white ticks and the nits look like dandruff. Marks been using a head lamp to see them better.

Now, the shampoo says that it kills all lice and nits. This isn't always true. Just like different medications work on different ppl, the same goes for this shampoo. So you still may have live lice even after the wash. These little guys, and the dead ones, need to be picked out one by one since you shouldn't re-shampoo for a couple of days. Picking them out isn't that easy. Because they are sticky, you need to get a good grip on them (I use tweezers because of my nail issue) and pull them the full length of the hair to get them off. It can take 1-4 hours to do this depending on the length of hair and amount of lice so make sure you find a good position to sit in cuz your back will be killing you in the end. If you happen to miss one, you can count on doing the whole process over again because they lay 8-10 eggs an hour which will hatch. Mark and I have so far accumulated just over 50 HOURS of picking out the girls hair (and discovered about 20 ways to say "don't move"). Sacrament meeting should be a piece of cake after this :).

Once you have thoroughly gone through each hair stand, you should re-vacuum the area you were working in. Also, you need to wash the clothes both of you were wearing and of course any bedding they have slept on. We have been putting the kids hair in braids and a hat (that is washed daily) and covering the couch with sheets. Some ppl make them sleep in shower caps, which would work great if the kids can keep their hair inside it. I have also heard of ppl scraping the scalp with a blade. I wouldn't recommend this because the shampoo does dry out the skin and hair. You will be scrapping up dry skin which looks extremely like lice. If you're good and catch it early, this whole thing could last only a couple of days. If not, you will be like us and it will last weeks.

I hope this helps with any questions you guys had :)