Getting Rid of Head Lice for Good!!

Hi there is a preventative shampoo and hairspray you can buy. Its called Fairytales. Some salons carry it. Good luck!

http://www.fairytaleshaircare.com/

You've gotten a lot of advice, so I will just second the suffocation method. I work for the state Department of Children and Families and our nursing department recommends this for foster families (and birth families). Any kind of oil or mayonaise will work. Cover the hair with it, wrap in a shower cap and have them sleep like that. Then wash and pick through their hair. I promise this has worked on many cases of chronic lice. Our nurses highly recommend it, over the prescription and drugstore chemicals.

Hi R.,

I just posted this question last week for a friend. See if you can go back in the archives or search for "lice" maybe around the 18th or 19th. I got so, so many responses, it is really an epidemic!

My friend has tried all kinds of treatments over the last week, it is just not that easy to be done with. There are a few treatments that came back again and again, like olive oil saturating the head, then wrap the head in saran wrap with a shower cap and leave it on overnight! Combing and coming through the hair the next day, then washing with shampoo. There is a website fairytails that sells specific products for the lice and then tea tree oil products (lice hate tea tree oil). She also went to Whole Foods and they carry a tea tree oil line with shampoo, oil and conditioner.

Good luck!

S.

Hi R.,

I remember well the frustration of treating my daughter multiple times throughout the school year! I do have a solution that worked for us (and my daughter's hair was almost waist-length!) What's also important is the classroom environment she's in -- in our case, the classroom was carpeted. The kids were permitted to bring stuffed animals from home for "quiet time" and also to bring small blankets or nap pads. They re-used these items daily without bringing them home for treatment, and until we insisted with the school, the carpet wasn't being treated either. During story times, the kids would recline on the carpet to get comfortable and inevitably, their hair came in contact with the carpet. In addition, jackets, sweaters and hats hung next to each other on hooks (another likely source of contamination). Borrowing hats and other items of clothing from each other is a problem, too. It only takes one child who isn't totally rid of the lice to recontaminate others.

Our solution was to coat my daughter's hair and scalp with vegetable oil. (I'm certain any oil would do, but the idea was so have something thick that would actually suffocate the live lice. Sorry to be gross!) We had to lift layers of hair to be sure her scalp was completely coated, and then coat the hair itself, paying particular attention to the areas at the base of the neck and behind the ears. We also coated the remainder of her hair, but perhaps not as thickly. Then we wrapped her scalp and hair completely with saran wrap (several layers) and covered it with a shower cap -- and she slept on it overnight. USE AN OLD PILLOW WITH A PLASTIC CASE AND A PILLOWCASE YOU CAN WASH IN HOT WATER AFTER, OR THAT YOU DON'T MIND THROWING AWAY!

It wasn't the most comfortable thing to sleep on, but it certainly was the most effective thing we tried. In the a.m., we blotted off as much oil as possible and started separating the hair into small layers and combing it through with the lice comb to remove anything we could get out.

We washed her hair several times until the excess oil was out, and started the combing and removing of eggs (which you need to do with your fingers because they attach themselves to the hair shaft.) Sit your daughter on a stool in front of you so that she's lower than you are, and preferably in direct light so you can see what you're working with. Put in a movie that she likes as a distraction and methodically separate the hair into small sections and comb with the fine comb, removing nits as you go. Once you've gone through it all, have her wash her hair again and rinse thoroughly for several minutes.

It's a long, tedious process, but she didn't want me to cut her hair and although it was a lot of work, I'm glad I didn't have to. If your daughter(s) have shorter hair, it shouldn't be as much of a production. If necessary, repeat a second time (we only had to when she was re-exposed). Be direct with the school about your concerns and visit the classroom if necessary to look for any unrecognized sources of contamination.

Good luck to you!

If you're in the Boston area there's a place called Nitwits in Cmabridge that will take care of them (for a fee)...a fellow student in my sons K class went - 1 visit & no more problems. If all else fails, I'd give them a try.

I used a oil called tar oil. i rub it in my daughters hair then placed shower caps over their hair . it seemed to of worked. and i kept checking their hair often to remove all the nits i could find. may of overdone that though i was like doing their hair every few hours. check with the parents of the kids you daughters hang out with. the parent that tries to telll you how easy it is to get rid of , probably have the infected kids. making a paste with fresh crushed gsrlic and lemon juice works to. this last time my 2 younger girls got the nasty critters i tried NIX (that stuff doesn't work) so i udes Africian hair oil( you can get that at walmart for 1.97) it works. i liked the tar oil better though. but i have no idea where to get it. i got mine at a goodwill store. hopefully you find out which one of your daughters friends have it. then you can maybe keep them from leaving their lil friends in your daughters hAIR. THE FIRST TIME MY OLDER ONES GOT IT I WAS TREATING THEIR HAIR . AND WASHING EVERYTHING IN HOT WATER FOR MONTHS.then i was talking to my daughters friend mom, she was accusing thee neighbors kid of having headlice, she als told me how easy it was to treat. i never told her about my kid getting it. i treated her hair, cut it short( like a pixy) and told her that maybe she not hang out with that child. and lots of prayer andrelying on God's help to get through this head lice nightmare. i learned a poem from the internet when i was researching natural ways to get headlice free, it goes something like this.... shampoo,condition, comb keeps the headlice away for they have no home. plus all that combing will help their hair grow. i sure hope i will not have to cut my girls hair this time though.i keep checking so far no more nits.

Hi R.,
This is what worked for us:
1. Coat the head and hair with olive oil (with or without Tea Tree Oil added) to smother the live ones.

2. Cover with a shower cap and leave on for at least 2 hours.

3. Shampoo and rinse well. Add a final rinse of Apple Cider Vinegar to loosen the nit glue.

4. Section off the hair with alligator clips and comb through with a lice comb. I also found it helpful to do the "nit picking" part in the dark while shining a flashlight on the hair. You can really see the "shine" from the nits well and then I'd pick them out with my fingernails and put them on a paper towel.

5. Very Important. Repeat this process every 3rd day for 12 days. This will get any live lice that lasted and any nits you may have missed that have hatched before they get a chance to reproduce.

Good luck!!

Hi R.,
It's so upsetting, isn't it!? My daughter had it last year. I was concerned about all of the chemicals in the Rit product so I went to Whole Foods and they have a good preventative shampoo. I don't remember the name, but it's brown.
Hope that helps and good luck,
N.

Use white vinegar for 2 hours , don't rinse out . Put Listerine on that for 2 hours , Wash w/ Dawn dishwashing . Make sure to wash ALL bedding & clothes...& I vaccum my sofa , because their head is on the sofa . I also throw my pilllows & throws in the dryer for @ LEAST 20 minutes. Hope this helps ...the OTC meds. don't work because the lice is immune to it now .

Alas, I am an unfortunate expert in head lice. We dealt with it for well over six weeks this past winter. The poison did not work, and they kept coming back.

What finally did it for us was a non-toxic, labor-intensive method that is not yet FDA approved, but I tell you, it works! It's at nuvoforheadlice.com, and it involves a skin cleanser called Cetaphil being slimed all over the child's head so that the head is dripping with the stuff. Then, you blow dry the hair, which takes forever because of the soap, and the lice get shrink-wrapped and suffocated. Leave the hair looking slightly funny for about 8 hours (overnight), then bathe and we never saw them again.

In terms of preventing, we also used Tea Tree Oil shampoo, which is supposed to be repellent. It does cool the head like an astringent, so the kids don't love it, but it's not too bad.

And for the record, it is NOT necessary to remove every single nit. The American Pediatric Association thinks that school "no nit" policies are ill-advised, and that there is no health hazard from unhatched eggs. I am trying to educate all of my local area school health departments about this, because archaic rules have actually led to some children repeating grades because of head lice, which I think is ridiculous.

Good luck! Hope this helps!
K.
Good luck!

I have heard of a product line called "Fairy Tales" which makes lice repellant shampoo and other products to deal with lice (www.fairytaleshaircare.com).

have you tried mayonaise? I heard that's a homeopathic remedy.. not sure if it works though??

You could try "tea-tree oil/Mellaluca Oil" (not sure of thats the correct spelling) it is a natual oil used for many things-lice, pimples, dry skin, antiseptic-you name it, it helps it! I use all the time. The smell is not the greatest, but it does work. You can get it at a GNC or on line if you google it. Other than that, you could try purple champoo, that is supposed to help you not catch it. I had it many time as a child and know how not fun it is to have it :) Especialy to have your mom us that nasty comb on your head-thanks mom!! Hope it helps.

Our experience with lice this winter led us to much research on-line and with parents we know. It's clear that a lot of lice are resistant to the chemical shampoos. We had the best luck with getting a really good lice comb (and none of the ones from the drug stores were fine enough...we had really good luck with "The Licemeister" which you can google and order for $15 online.). Every morning and evening we sat our daughter down, wet her hair, and combed, combed combed. The over the counter shampoo did nothing...but the combing had us under control in a few days. We continued to comb for two weeks to make sure that we didn't miss anything. Other than that, we washed pillow cases, pajama tops, and hats every day for a week. That did it for us, and it's what has worked for many of the parents we talked to. Good luck. It's a pain, and takes a lot of time, but it's also a solvable problem, not a disease that anyone is hurt by.

Hi R.,
We had been battling this for about three months and think we are out of the woods. I agree that the over the counter stuff does nothing. I used listereine (the orignial flavor) and used a spray bottle to saturate the hair. Then, I put a shower cap on her haed for about and hour and then picked through her hair for (I am not exaggerating) 1.5-2 hours. Then I used teatree oil shampoo and coconut scented conditioner. I followed up with this for a few days along with taking up the rug in her room and putting all bedding and stuffed animals in the dryer on hight heat for 30 minutes every day. The thing that I think really made the difference was that I picked through her hair every day for 1.5-2 hours until I fouind nothing else. The other thing I did was to constantly put vaseline on the red spots on her scalp. It is my understanding that the red spots are where the lice bite and hang out so I was attempting to both relieve her of the itching and to try to suffocate the bugs. Honestly, I was so exhausted doing all of this but in the end it was well worth it. Good luck!

My daughter got them twice last year and even gave them to me! don't share towels, don't re-use towels. Don't share brushes. Every am for about 2 weeks i would put her pillow and mine in the dryer for about 20 minutes. I made her wear a shower cap in the house. We plastered our hair with mayo and wore a shower cap one nite. We both HATE mayo so it was pretty gross. I would say one of their friends has them, no sleepovers. Comb out hair daily for at least a week Be patient when you just want to scream. Good luck! Miki

There was an article in the Boston Parent's Paper a few months ago about this woman who used to be a school nurse who has now opened her own business getting rid of lice professionally! Maybe you could find her through their website.

cover the whole head with olive oil and cover with plastic for at least 2 hours. I used regular shampoo, but read recently that rinsing with vinegar works. It will still take a couple times and you still have to comb and pick the nits, but this worked for me when the over the counter didn't.