Lice - Why Do They Love My Daughter ....

Keep up the olive oil. If you don't already, saturate her head with it then cover it with a shower cap and have her sleep with it like that.

Have you tried tea tree? Get the essential oil and the shampoo and conditioner.

It is hard when you can't nail down the vector. We had rounds and rounds of it and were tearing our hair out about it. Come to finally find out - it was the kids' stepsister. Every visit, she and SD would share a room and lay on the same beanbags, and share hair stuff and other things sisters do and bam! more lice. It only stopped when the vector girl's father started treating her every time he picked her up.

So, yeah, it's probably something like that. A close friend. A kid with the hook next to hers at school.

We told SD that either her hair was braided every day, tightly, or we had to cut it. Friend of mine has a 4 yr old and cut her DD's hair short. Just couldn't deal with that thick hair and lice.

I feel your pain. I also feel hers, as RID makes me unwell (it's pesticides, after all) and the little buggers are getting immune to it. We sat SD in the bathroom over a sheet and picked through her hair pretty much nightly for months. Tiring. Annoying. But what else can you do but shave their heads? Boys are easy that way.

I'd also ask her what her behaviors are - does she put her head close to others? Does she share a hook or put her coat with other people? Do kids share hats? Etc.

Oh, and it was middle school for us, too. I wonder what it is about that age....

ETA: NOTHING KILLS NITS, NEVER DEPEND ON ANY PRODUCT THAT CLAIMS TO KILLS NITS TOO

Take her to a place that picks out the nits. If you don't get rid of the nits you will never get rid of the lice. There is a special comb that works much better than the one you get in the rid box. There is a special technique to using the comb, if you don't use this technique along with this comb, you will more than likely not get the nits out.

Another thing is STOP using the RID. Those harsh pesticides can eventually cause neurological problems.

Another type of shampoo to use is Suave Rosemary mint. They don't like those shampoos at all. But I doubt lice are real picky.

I would keep her hair up in a bun whenever she goes out. I personally would check any kids head that came into my home. I also wouldn't let her go to another kids home for a long while or if you are close with the other mother, ask her to check her kids before your daughter steps foot into their home.

If you want the instructions on how to properly check her head, PM me.

BTW EVERYONE should beware of head lice when the kids go back to school from Christmas break. That's when schools see a big outbreak with lice, is right after a break. I have it on my calendar as a reminder for my girls to wear their hair pulled back and tight.

I am one of those who have worked years and years of child care and seen those family's that have just one child that gets lice over and over and over when no one else in the family ever gets even one.

I use headlice.org when I have a question of concern. It is down to earth and a good resource.

I think you have done a lot to take care of this. You seem to have a lot of good information and not caught up in old wives tales.

I do suggest that you look with a magnifier of some sort though. I can see the nits over and over but never see a bug. If I get the head gear down and use it, it magnify's a 7 I think, I can see each and every strand of hair and get every little critter, even the new borns.

I never use poison's on the kids hair. I am allergic to ragweed and that is what almost every lice shampoo is made out of. I suggest if you have done everything possible then use the lice MD shampoo. It is not a pesticide. It is medicine. We have even used Lindane cream and it didn't phase those silly bugs.

I checked the kids every day for weeks and when I went days without finding any sight of them I would go to every other day then one a week on Saturday mornings. That is my maintenance schedule. I get one kid in the shower, wash her hair deeply and seriously. I scrub her head then condition it and comb out all the tangles. After rinsing it I don't even towel dry it. I take her immediately and start going through her hair. The bugs breathe air just like we do so they are sort of stunned from being washed and soaked in the water. They are slow and easy to find. I put each bug into a cup of cool water then slide any nits down the shaft. They do pull off if you just pull it down slowly. They go in the water too.

BY the time I am through if there are any critters in there they have been caught and are in the water swimming.

We have been doing really well for nearly a year now. I have used the Lindane cream twice with no resulting dead critters and Lice MD once with major results when it was a particularly steady breakout of bugs.

Brush sharing.
lice can't jump like fleas, it has to come from contact with someone , something infected. Ie putting her head down somewhere someone with lice has put theirs down or sharing brushes. You also have to TREAT EVERYTHING, her bedding ,stufties if she has any, pillows , vacuum , couch, computer chair anywhere her head touches or could touch. Just treating her isn't going to get rid of them they will come back if you don't treat at least her bedding. washed in HOT water , and they make rid bedding spray. Don't forget to treat her brushes and combs too.
Contact her friends parents , get them to check for it, contact the school , they will likely do a head check.

My GD battled lice for probably a year. I finally switched from RID to Lice MD. One treatment last December (2011) and she hasn't had a problem since.

Also, we put Blue Magic Coconut stuff in her hair. It comes in a plastic jar, like vaseline. It is a grease. Doesn't take much - the jar will last you a couple of years! It makes the hair slick so even if she does get live bugs, their eggs won't attach to the hair shaft so once the live ones die, the life cycle is broken and you don't get an infestation.

Good luck! I understand your frustration!

Even if you cut the hair off she will still have lice unless you treat her for lice with a shampoo after first combing out all the nits and then clean bedding, clothes, furniture, etc. Maybe they changed some of this from the day our kids were in school but it works and you shouldn't get them back unless not done correctly and thoroughly and unless she stays away from sharing combs, hats, etc. We were told that if you sit behind someone whose hair falls on your desk or by you that close like coat hanging by theirs you can get them from that, not sure if that's true or not. Do a complete thorough combing out of nits and treat and clean. Should be gone.

Recurring lice usually means they were not really completely gone. The best way we found to get rid of them was to nitpick daily for about 2 weeks. With 2 girls with long hair it took about 1 hour and 15 minutes each night per girl. They shower and condition their hair (they say not to do this but it was the only way to slide the lice comb through their long hair). I throw all their hair to one side of the head and clip it, then start taking about 1 inch by 1/8 inch strips of hair and combing with a metal lice comb (throw away the plastic ones that come with Rid, they do not grab all the nits). You start with the comb flat against the scalp and pull it all the way to the end of the long strands of hair. The metal combs are about $10, and come with 2 types: one with fine and one with long tines. We only use the fine one. Treat with Rid on day 1. Then comb for 7 nights every night and swish the comb in a white bowl with hot water after each pull through the hair. You will see nymphs (baby lice) that I at first thought were lice pieces. After about the 2nd or 3rd day of combing not much shows in the hot water when you rinse the comb. Then for security we would retreat after 1 week with Rid and comb again every night for another week. An alternate method is to not use Rid but to use Cetaphyl cleanser. Below is a link to one method. My friend's husband who has short hair just puts handfuls in his hair, rubs it in, combs his hair, and then lets it air dry and wears it in his hair for a day, then washes and repeats the next day. It dries clear and looks like hardened gel. Lice breathe through their exoskeleton and when you cover them in dried Cetaphyl it slowly suffocates them. They also cannot adhere their eggs to the stiffened hair, and they themselves have a harder time crawling around the fatter hair strands.
http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_treat-head-lice-ceta...
We never went crazy vacuuming and washing. We did change the kid's bedding the first day, and after that I would just put it in the dryer for 30 minutes which kills the live ones and the eggs. For items that cannot be dried hot you can place them in the freezer for 5 hours. We also vacuumed the bedrooms and the headrests in the car. But lice & eggs cannot live off the body for very long so the chances of picking up a hair with a live louse or viable egg is slim.
Good answers to common questions here:
http://www.headlice.org/faq/questions.htm
Also tell her to put her hat and scarf and coat in a bag at school and not hang it next to everyone else's coat, no sharing of hair brushes or elastics, not trying on hats in a store, no sharing of wigs at drama club, etc.etc.

It is tough treating for lice. All of your replies so far are the best answers that I could come up with after doing Internet research. Like AV, I found that the reason my dd had a reoccurring issue is that her half sister (who is 13 and basically refuses to come her thick, matted hair) had lice.
I was so mad-after all of house cleaning, head treating ( I cut my dd's hair after the third time), laundry mat visits, and brush/comb boiling!! I drove straight to her fathers house and cut her half sisters hair off. Haven't had a problem since. I did use rid spray for the house but used mayo and plastic on heads as that is what the pediatricians office recommends.
We do also use shampoo with blue dye (read that somewhere on the Internet) and made at home spray conditioner with tea tree oil.

There's a prescription now you can get from your doctor. That's what finally worked for us. Good luck. It is a pain.

Lots of conditioner (try fairly tails lice products) and lots of hair spray. She can brush it out. Also, use the lice spray on her coats, sweatshirts and book bags.

Also, I heard that braids are best. So put her hair in a long braid and spray it down.

Forget the rid - Mayo and oil work best.

BTW - have you checked yourself? Be sure no one else in the family has it and keeps reinfecting her.

Poor kid!