God is Love http://newfreshcreatedjustforyou.blogspot.com/
We were sooooo grateful to discover Melaleuca wellness products and my grandchildren have been spared this miserable evil licey invasion ever since. Melaleuca.com
Donawithimoms@yahoo.ca for further information..

I remember back in grade school, a friend suddenly showed up one day with her hair all shorn off. We're talking short enough for Marine drill sergeant, though not nearly as meticulous. It was horrible for her. I project that impression, anyway, because my memory of it is one of horror. That's what was done back then, or at least for our socio-economic scale.

This was back you know before PCs, back when televisions had to warm up when you turned them on and computers filled up entire buildings. You know, in the olden days. For some reason, my memory is that she had her head washed with lye, though that couldn't be right. (Would boric acid work? Would it leave any hair behind?)

I made it through without being touched by the lice. I don't remember any outbreak. But poor J. She was stoic in the face of the childish ridicule that's the standard for 3rd grade mores. It pretty much erased her social life, and then she no longer attended our school. I don't know if it was related.

And here I thought you just had a new power-executive hairstyle! Looks great, itchy or not! I hope the little guy is doing alright.

Laura Scott
design, snap, blog

Aren't monthly lice checks at school normal? And kids that have it are sent home and not allowed to come back until they are lice free (and they *will* be checked when they return)?

Or is this another one of those strange things about my elementary school?

Sassymonkey, Sassymonkey Reads, and Sassymonkey Eats

A few months back my son and I were wrestling around over a soccer ball in the backyard when I got close to his fair blonde hair and saw...

I swooped him up off the ground and started walking him upstairs where I proceeded to throw every cuddly toy, rug and bedsheet into plastic bags. I called the daycare center and informed them.

OMG. I swear, not one of them had every dealt with it before, they treated my son like a leper! Horrible women... all of the administration and most of the students were african american and said they actually had not ever seen it before? something about hair structure.
Anyway, they made him stay home for like 4 days. it was retarded that they didn't even have a head lice policy or someone 'qualified' to check for nits before he returned.

of course... there's the ex. I called him and told him right away too... gave him detailed instructions on how to delouse his house and told him to tell his family (he'd spent lots of time with them and my son, because his sister and cousin were home on leave from the military, family gatherings every other day for two straight weeks). So... the following week... he is sent home again because he has lice again. They accuse me of not having properly deloused him... what was the problem? The ex figured I'd deloused the boy, he'd deloused his house... everything was fine. Well... he hadn't told his family until the 2nd breakout.

After that, I just shaved his head. It was the only way to get him back into school... with the paranoid teachers who kept thinking every piece of dandruff was a louse. Luckily he's a boy and I kept his hair pretty short anyway so it didn't seem to bother him.

As for me, I did a treatment on myself and then called my sister over. She gave me a 'trim' of about 18" (I still had shoulder length hair after that, was way overdue for a cut) then gave me a 2nd treatment.

Goodness. Yeah, people act like it's the plague, but, goodness, pretending it isn't there isn't going to help!
Oh, btw... I've since moved my son to another daycare center and asked up front what their policy on lice was and whether someone would be there to 'check' kids when they returned to school.

Good luck to all the parents out there, and send me some when the time comes that I'll need it again.

Melanie Perry
*not all who wander are lost*
Mistress of the Dorkness

I've had zero experience personally with lice, but I spent almost a month of the summer laughing at/with Pam the Beancounter about her struggles with these bugs.

It started innocently enough she had a lousy evening. It continued through lice sex, the return, Part Three, Part Four with the hysterical movie trailer script... and the tale of the leaping bedsheets!

Finally some success with tea tree oil lets Pam return to work!!

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

I don't know if you remember this (I know it was reported in the national news) but, in late June, the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers flooded portions of upstate NY. It so happens that we live right across the street from the Susquehanna, so we had to be evacuated and spent four enthralling nights sleeping on mats in the middle school gym.

Which means -- you guessed it -- we ALL came home with lice. All seven of us.

Having managed to get through 47 years of life without ever encountering the disgusting little buggers, they were now the absolute center of my existence.

I spent the summer dividing my time between flood cleaup, flood repair, laundry, and diving face-first into everybody's head. What made it all much worse was that I had a hell of a time getting rid of the insidious little critters.

Two of my kids are female. The younger, being only 11 (at the time), didn't mind the shorn hair and I was kind enough not to cut it too short.

But the elder is a 16-year-old with long, thick, luxirant tresses.

I mean, the girl has hair. Observe:

Knowing what I know about high school, I didn't have the heart to cut it. Which meant that I wound up hand-picking all the nits out of all that hair.

I dee-double-dare anybody to accuse me of not loving my children!

I don't know about the monthly inspections but, here, once the school nurse has found lice in your head and sent you home, you don't get to return to the classroom until said school nurse has inspected said head and certified you as vermin-free.

Cheers!
Dawn

The Journal Blog
- where business and politics meet the mind of a wise-ass

I never had it when I was a kid, but I vividly recall when my boys were in kindergarten, there was an outbreak going on at their school. Some of the mothers in our neighborhood were just horrible to the couple of kids that got it. One of them was checking the head of another child at the bus stop. That child went home and told his mother and all hell broke loose, threatened lawsuits for touching the kid... oh my, it was ugly.

(This is the single largest reason why I wish there had been mommybloggers when my kids were small - because everyone around me was INSANE!)

But our only infestation with lice was several years later. My boys and I were living about 100 miles from home for the first time in our lives and they were frequently heading back to my sister's house on weekends. They got it from my nieces and gave it to me. We weren't positive what it was until my sister called me at work and confirmed it. And this is the best part: I went into my supervisor's office and told her I needed to go home and why. She made me use vacation time because I wasn't "sick."

I'm sorry to say that I was tempted to walk across the room and rub my head up against hers. Sick, no. Contagious? Hell, yes.

We actually didn't have a difficult time getting rid of it, maybe because they weren't continually exposed to where it was coming from. But I did shave their heads and cut about six inches of my own hair.

I Think About

well out here in the part of India that I live, there is a very good oil which gets rid of lice and keeps out fresh infestations. For nits, if you wait a week and then reapply the oil, it cleans out your head completely. It's some sort of Ayurvedic preparation. Incidentally, I thought head lice only existed in warm humid climates! Wish I could send out some oil for all of you there.

I know, I probably should have taken the time to check all of the comments to see if any one mentioned this, but it's late, and I wanted to get this in before I fall asleep at the keyboard:)!! Last year my children came home with lice. I panicked! I freaked! I blamed every child that they had played with in the last 30 days. Once I gained some minute control over my emotions, we went shopping at Wal-Mart. I bought the usual (and not so reliable anymore) lice shampoo and combs. Did all the washing, all the vacuuming, all the praying, and all the nervous breakdown moderus operandi, lol. I did some research online and found the Lice RobiComb. It was available at Wal-Mart. It cost about $25.00, uses 1 AA battery and is a God Send. The kids didn't like it much because it pulls a little and if you get too close to their ears it's a little irritating, but in about 2 weeks, the lice was gone! I don't mean to sound like a commercial for RobiCombs but ladies this thing is AWESOME!

Does anyone have a good link to information about lice and mites? I've searched online and read all that is available, and I still feel a bit ill-informed, in particular with Chiggers. Yes, chiggers. We have a chiggers problem with our puppies and now me.

Thanks.

GrenadeFishing.com

God is Love http://newfreshcreatedjustforyou.blogspot.com/
If anyone wants to get a membership with a teatree oil company to use shampoos on a constant basis and launder liquid with the teatree oil in it for prevention, Just contact me with teatree oil in the subject line..Very glad to help you all out.Bless your dear hearts.

Lisa, I've been admiring your haircut without realizing the reason for it. . . Eeeeeeeek!

As a child, I was a Girl Scout and a frequent guest and host of sleepovers. You know the sleepover connection, but what a lot of people don't think about is when you send your kinds to camp, they're sharing riding helmets and fencing helmets and and and. . . My Girl Scout troop used to go to a ranch called "Lazy J" that we renamed "Licey J" after 20 of us came back with lice. Yay.

I had lice ELEVEN times before high school. (I also once caught fleas from my sister, who had let our kitten sleep in her hair.) My poor mother!

Anyway, some tips on avoiding lice: Have your kids hang their jackets and backpacks on the backs of their desk chairs instead of in a common coat closet. No sleepovers unless everyone's been checked for lice. Beware tall bus and airplane seats. Check your kids' hair frequently, and act at the first sign of infestation. Request that the school nurse, if there is one, check all kids' hair regularly. When I was in elementary school, the nurse came directly to the classroom a few times a year and used a pair of tongue depressors (a fresh pair for each kid's head) to plow through our locks.

When the inevitable childhood infestation happens, use a metal pet flea comb--they're a PITA (and painful!) but the best at removing lice eggs. Be sure to wash curtains, too, especially in bedrooms. Don't forget to launder the bedskirts, any pet linens, tote bags, and backpacks. Quarantine plush and fabric toys in plastic bags in the garage for at least a month, and launder those that can be washed.

I don't know what the situation is like today, but when I was a kid, the OTC lice shampoos didn't work particularly well. We used a prescription kind called Kwell--we probably had a standing prescription at the local pharmacy.

Ah, the memories. . . As I'm about to put my son in daycare a few times a week, I guess I should stock up on supplies.

Good luck avoiding future infestations!

Leslie

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Research and Academia
Proprietor, The Clutter Museum

I think it's a shame that the schools don't have stricter policies like they did before.

My sister and I got lice from a friend when we were in middle school about 20 years ago. We had to be lice and egg free when we went back to school. The school was called and the nurse had to check our hair before we were let back into the classroom.

My friend and her 19 months old son got head lice from her sister's kids about 2 months ago. Her sister's 4 kids have been coming home with lice off and on for over 2 years now.

The schools around my area changed the policy and kids can go back to school with eggs but as long as they don't have any lice bugs. I guess the school board didn't take into consideration that eggs hatch and the solution kills all bugs but not all eggs. It only takes one and the process starts all over again.

It makes me nervous just thinking about sending my son to school in a few years.