IN - Mom Charged After Daughter, 4, Nearly Died From Severe Lice Infestation, Scottsburg, Apr 2021

[Tutter]

I didn’t experience lice until my 3rd kid when we moved to a much larger population area. She got it twice, once in fall once in spring. I’m lazy, true, but this method worked. I did get it once ( yuck) but 3 other family members did not either time. Not even my husband who is in the bed with me!

lice can’t live off of a head for more than 48 hours, so I didn’t do anything other than, vacuum, wash and dry bedding and put away stuffed toys for a few days.

Breaking the life cycle from hatching to laying eggs is key here.

listerine, good old amber listerine...you soak the hair and wear a shower cap for 2 hours. Then you rinse and let hair dry. You can comb or not, blow dry or not. The lice are dead, but the nits are not. You smell like listerine.

Then the vinegar, I did this the next day, but it can be the same day. Soak the hair, wear shower cap for 2 hours and rinse. The vinegar loosens the glue and the nits will come off easy. I combed but not obsessively, because if you miss one it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to comb!

You repeat the process in 3 days. 7 days and 14 days from that, repeat. you will kill any live lice and it is too early for them to have laid more nits...this is how you win.

In between, and for a long time after I add tea tree oil to shampoo and conditioner, maybe 10 drops to a 15 oz bottle. Hair in a ponytail with hairspray, and homemade repellant.

tea tree spray:

2 oz bottle, fill mostly with water. Add 10-15 drops tea tree. Spray on everyone’s head! This prevents them from choosing your head as home.

 

[Teche]

You are absolutely correct. Lice are very resistant to OTC products like Riddex. School nurse at my kids’ school instructs people to not even bother with purchase- waste of money. Instead she instructs getting a shower cap, to keep the hair wet & soaking the hair in white vinegar 30 mins 3x a day. Kills the lice- but not the nits. She advises to follow up with undiluted pure tea tree oil combed into the hair directly & added to shampoo. I can say this was HIGHLY EFFECTIVE when my daughter got lice in 3rd grade.

Which makes me wonder… what was this mom’s economic situation? I spent $55 on pure tea tree oil & shower cap 15 years ago. Plus all the massive laundry to eradicate. If you’re already struggling to put food on the table or gas in the car, and you go to laundromat, lice can really become a financial hardship & I doubt one can find tea tree oil, gallon jugs of vinegar or shower caps at the local food bank. Mo

I worked at a school health center where students were sent for lice. If lice were found, we provided parents who didn't have a washer or dryer, tons of trash bags to “quarantine” items that could not be easily washed. The nurses recommended full-fat cheap mayonnaise to slather onto hair and shower caps to cover the hair.

 

[Lemon Drop]

I wish the pharmacist had called 911, and stalled the mom.

I agree as a health care provider they had a legal obligation. Sometimes I wish people weren't so afraid to step in and do the right thing.

 

[airportwoman]

There is probably an agency in your area that will hand over the shampoo & comb.

Someone still has to use them, of course, and do the laundry & vacuuming &....

Mayonnaise under a shower cap may be effective. Apparently the lice, and nits, can 'hold their breath' for about 7 hours. So, if you can arrange to suffocate them for about 8 hours -- then remove every trace -- you can win the battle.

Blow dryer on High can dry out the nits & kill them, you still have to remove them.

Old person here, invested a lot of years in schools.

Bottom line, these children deserve better, likely their Mom does as well!

jmho ymmv lrr

When I worked at the grocery store pharmacy (20 years ago) I had a few customers who asked about "natural" lice remedies, and I recommended mayonnaise and a shower cap. Not Miracle Whip, but real, genuine, egg-and-oil mayonnaise.

Tea tree oil is better as a preventive, by adding a few drops to a bottle of shampoo. It's toxic at the doses required to eradicate them.

 

[airportwoman]

I worked at a school health center where students were sent for lice. If lice were found, we provided parents who didn't have a washer or dryer, tons of trash bags to “quarantine” items that could not be easily washed. The nurses recommended full-fat cheap mayonnaise to slather onto hair and shower caps to cover the hair.

Yep, and keep those items in an unheated shed or garage, or the trunk of a car if necessary. This was an every-November scourge in our area.

 

[airportwoman]

I have to agree, we never heard about head lice when we were kids, but I grew up in a middle-class area and they weren't looking for them.