Busy in Bristow: Breaking the Silence about Head Lice

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Oldest Daughter had been scratching her head a lot, but it was summer, and lice weren’t on our parental radar. They were, however, crawling all over her head. By the time we found the disgusting parasites, she had a full out infestation, and it had spread to her younger sister with whom she shares a room. In fact, I found them on Youngest Daughter first.

She was reading a book about kittens to me, and she paused to scratch her head. I decided to take a closer look, lifting her thick brown hair up, off the nape of her neck. Immediately, I saw nits.

I knew what they looked like because we’d been on alert two or three times before – twice from friends who were good enough to tell us their daughters had lice, and once when the school sent home a letter.  Online, I’d found out that nits are oval shaped and usually white or grey. They look an awful lot like dandruff, except dandruff flicks easily off the scalp, while nits stick to the hair shaft and have to be removed with a special comb or your fingernail.

In the past, we’d been lucky. This ambush took us completely off guard. Youngest Daughter had at least twenty nits, and although I was horrified, the unhatched eggs were a zero on the ick scale compared to the yellow adult louse I saw scurry through her hair away from the part I’d created. This is where I literally handed her off to her father who is in charge of all things “bug” in our household. It’s a fair division of labor: I battle germs, and he kills bugs.

Knowing Oldest Daughter had been scratching her head for weeks, we quarantined her in the bathroom while we tackled YD’s hair. The lice were much harder to see in Oldest Daughter’s hair because it is lighter, but boy were they there. We’d missed the warning signs for so long with her that she was not only covered in what – a hundred? More? – nits, but the medicinal (or should I say toxic) shampoo and resultant combing yielded countless adult lice … laying in the tub after her shower, bobbing in the cupful of alcohol where we cleaned combs, and falling out of her hair onto her yellow shirt, some still alive, most dead. It was like a battlefield strewn with the bodies of dozens of lice, all dying from the napalm of Rid or being cut in half by my husband’s fingernail.

If you’re still reading, you’re either a masochist or in the medical profession, or you’ve got a stomach of steel or just been here, done that.[/pullquote]

It’s the last part I’d like to speak to: why am I so embarrassed to post this? To make my Facebook status: “The kids have lice!” To tell anyone but my closest friends that the reason we’re not … accepting slumber party invitations, inviting them to our house, or coming over to swim in their pool is that our kids have head lice?

The social stigma is that head lice result from dirty conditions. While this is apparently still true of BODY LICE (I read all about head lice and their first cousins on the CDC website), which are all but nonexistent in the U.S.A., except among homeless populations who do not have regular access to showers, it is NOT TRUE of HEAD LICE. You know how honey badger don’t care? Well neither do head lice. If you breathe and have blood, they’re happy to camp out in your hair and throw a kegger. You do not have to live in filth, sleep in dirty sheets, or go unbathed. In fact, our daughters have taken more showers this summer than any other time of the year (sometimes two a day) because we’ve been on vacation, and no one likes to be sandy from the beach or be sticky with sunblock or smelly with bug spray. So, I’d like you to spread the word: anyone can get lice from head-to-head contact with someone who has them. Some quick facts I got from credible websites like the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health:

  • Lice crawl, they don’t jump. (THANK the heavens for this.)
  • They can live for a day or two off a host, but not beyond that, so …
  • Most people catch lice from direct contact with an infested person, not from sharing combs or clothing.
  • Although it’s unlikely you catch them from combs, it’s better NOT TO SHARE personal items, even within a family, if you ask me. If you do transfer a live louse, it only takes one female to lay hundreds of eggs. If you transfer an unhatched egg, you may re-start the whole cycle.
  • Statistics show girls catch lice more often than boys. There is no evidence to suggest this has to do with hair length, but the longer or thicker the hair, the more time consuming it is to “nit pick.”
  • With that said, an expert told me not to cut my daughters’ hair “just because” of the lice. There are cases in which the cycle begins again even with the hair cut short.
  • If you do cut hair, know you are only doing it to make the inevitable nit-combing easier. You cannot get rid of the lice by cutting hair unless you get BUZZ CUTS, and even then it’s not guaranteed.
  • None of the over the counter medications kill nits/eggs, only live lice. This means …
  • You MUST continue to check for nits/eggs even after your first treatment, and …
  • You will probably have to re-treat 7-10 days after the first shampooing to ensure that any newly hatched lice are killed before they can lay more eggs.
  • You CANNOT SEE newly hatched lice with the naked eye. They are called nymphs, live close to the scalp, and apparently if you could see them, they look like pepper, but you can’t see them, so do a second treatment about a week after the first.
  • This is gross, but you’ll live through it, and it’s not AS BAD as a lot of other things so you deal with it and you’re grateful you’re children have lice and not a disease.
  • Lice don’t spread disease. They’re just disgusting because they’re bugs.
  • If after two treatments, you still find nits and/or live lice, see your doctor because CDC says so, and because …
  • There is a prescription medicine which KILLS NITS, and which may eliminate the need for nit-combing.
  • You should tell anyone your children have come into direct contact with (think overnights, shared personal items, wrestling or other direct contact) about the lice. Think about it: if the shoe were on the other foot, wouldn’t you want to know so you could be vigilant about checking?
  • If school is in session, you also need to tell the nurse/teacher. The school cannot keep your child out of school once you’ve been treated for the lice, but they can alert other parents to keep an eye out for an outbreak.
  • Lice do not live on animals. Fleas live on animals. Leave Fido out of this!
  • If you are uncomfortable putting pesticides on your child’s head, there are other treatments which – although not scientifically proven – show success. There is plenty of information online. Some alternate treatments include:

    • Tea tree oil
    • Coconut oil
    • Olive oil, vinegar, or mayonnaise saturating the hair covered with a shower cap or plastic bag (never while a child is sleeping! You want to suffocate the lice, not your child!)

Although you’ll want to check other family members (we’ve been lucky so far that the rest of us are lice-free), there is no reason to use the pesticide/medication on those who have no lice activity.

Washing sheets, pillowcases, stuffed animals and all clothing worn by your child during a lice infestation is important. Use hot, hot water, and know that your best friend is your dryer which kills all of it (perhaps even the nits?) in five minutes. Most of us go for longer because we like overkill. Pun intended.

Rubbing alcohol and boiling hot water are for cleaning your combs, brushes, and nit-picking devices. You could also clean barrettes, etc. in this manner, but I say chuck ‘em and buy new ones when you’re sure your kids are lice-free.

Just for the record: I saw a live louse crawling on Youngest Daughter’s hairband the day we cleaned her room from top to bottom. Before I could even put the hairband in a plastic bag, the little bugger had crawled UNDER THE BOW where no one could see it. Yeah, I threw it out.

If you prefer to pinch pennies and are not as easily grossed out as I am, you can bag the hairbands for two weeks (some people say four). Lice cannot live without a host or oxygen. I did this with their mountains of stuffed animals instead of throwing them out (I’m too sentimental) or tossing them in the dryer. I threw out a lot of things though … items I had no love for and no attachment to … pillows (not their pillow pets, just regular pillows that were old anyway), fuzzy slippers. It was fairly easy to separate items into three categories:

1)      Things the kids won’t miss, and I can easily buy new. (THROW OUT)

2)      Favorite playthings that they’ll miss right away, like loveys. (WASH/DRY on GENTLE CYCLE but HOT HEAT. RETURN ON AS-NEEDED BASIS. The longer you keep them away from your child, the fewer times they’ll have to go through the washer/dryer.)

3)      Things the kids will eventually miss but can take a 1-month hiatus in plastic bags in the attic. (STORE)

I hope this has been helpful.

I hope that if and when it’s “your turn,” you’ll remember that the stigma is untrue, and you should tell people who need to know just as you’d tell them your child has the stomach flu.

I hope you won’t feel ashamed to go out in public. People cannot transfer lice without direct head-to-head contact, something you don’t engage in standing in line at a store.

I hope that you’ll find a way to be physically affectionate with your child without sharing pillow space. I have learned how to give giant bear hugs without rubbing my head against theirs, although I really missed no-worry physical contact and couldn’t wait to snuggle in bed again with my beautiful daughters.

I hope you won’t avoid us on the street. We’re lice-free now, and it took a lot of courage for me to post this.

Like many moms, Kathy drives a mini-van full of booster seats and Disney/Pixar DVD’s. When she’s not combing for lice (everyone should check on a regular basis!), or chauffeuring her kids, ages 11 and under, to activities, she teaches and writes fiction, poetry and this column about the challenges and rewards of being a mom to young children.

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