Several years ago, our family was struck with head lice. Myself and two of my daughters got it. There was a breakout at school and church so it was essentially unavoidable especially when you have multiple girls with long hair.
I did the thing the school and the pediatrician told me to do – I had my husband go to the Wal-Mart and buy some Nix. Well, they didn’t tell me to have my husband go, but I certainly wasn’t going to go – not in the state I was in. 😉 He didn’t get the lice so he didn’t have to be embarrassed about buying the Nix, right? I’m sure he felt the same.
I used the Nix on all of us and the lice just came back so I used it again. I started to itch ALL OVER. I freaked out and thought my head lice had managed to spread all over my body and had morphed into body lice.
I immediately booked an appointment with my doctor and sat in the waiting room looking like a heroin addict. I was wild-eyed and twitchy – sporadically scratching at myself. I seriously felt like I had tiny bugs crawling all over my skin or under my skin.
They called me in and I explained to the doctor the situation. He found it highly amusing and proceeded to tell me that I definitely didn’t have body lice. And I was like – how do you know? There’s tiny bugs crawling on my skin as we speak.
He proceeds to examine my arms and legs and says – there’s no evidence of body lice. He says – this is how confident I am that you don’t have body lice and he proceeds to hug me. Awww! What a good doctor. I guess he must’ve realized that was all I needed. 🙂
He then told me that Nix is a neuro toxin and the side effects include but aren’t limited to itching. I made him give me a prescription for body lice just in case the itching didn’t go away (which I didn’t end up using because it went away after a day or so).
My daughter got sick to her stomach after the second Nix treatment so after that I started looking into other options. I found out there’s this place in St. Louis called Lice Busters where they will do all the treatment for you. I almost booked us an appointment there but then I just decided I’d buy the product they use and try to do it myself because we were on a budget.
Buy Product
They use a product called Happy Heads. I used the following products from Happy Heads:
This is the shampoo that kills the lice:
http://www.happyheadsproducts.com/NontoxicTreatmentShampoo.php
I then used this conditioner and combing solution which makes the hair very soft and not tangled so it allows you to be able to comb out the nits.
http://www.happyheadsproducts.com/Conditioner.php
I also highly recommend buying this comb because if you have long hair like we do – you need a sturdy comb – we broke a few – this one won’t break – it’s called the Terminator for a reason:
http://www.happyheadsproducts.com/terminator.php
I like this comb also because one of my daughter’s has dermatitis of the scalp which kind of looks like lice – this delayed her lice diagnosis for some time b/c I thought that it was just the dermatitis when she actually got lice until she finally got sent home by the school nurse is when I realized it was not the dermatitis. But after I treated her for lice with this product and comb I realized that her dermatitis essentially went away as well. Maybe it was the tea tree and peppermint oil in the product that helped and the combing of the scalp. So, now I still use some of these products to try to keep the dermatitis at bay but not nearly as frequently – just sporadically throughout the year if I think her scalp is getting especially bad.
Comb out the hair thoroughly
Be sure to watch the combing video on their website. The most important thing is combing the hair out everyday the way they do in their video. I found that I wasn’t using the comb right at first. I was like gingerly picking at everyone’s hair trying not to hurt anyone – I kind of felt like an orangutan mom with my baby orangutans.
Once I got the hang of it with that video – the lice didn’t stand a chance. I could comb out everyone’s hair in 5 minutes flat – including my own.
I did douse the hair in that combing solution first though to make it painless. I did this every day for about a month – it started to become a painless part of my routine. Take a shower in the morning, comb out my hair for 5 minutes, then blow dry.
Blow dry the hair
One other key ingredient is to blow dry the hair with hot air thoroughly after combing out focusing on the scalp area. This hot air kills over 90% of nits so if there’s any left they should die as well.
Clean sheets and vacuum
As far as cleaning the house out, I would recommend just vacuuming daily and changing the sheets and pillow cases often. If they can’t live on the head, then they can’t live anywhere else either. I actually went crazy and cleaned the entire house and managed to break our washing machine in the process because I was trying to shove all the comforters in there. So, we were in a bad state with my husband taking things to the laundry mat and me freaking out. But in the end, I realized that all I needed to do was the sheets and vacuuming.
Don’t stress – this too will pass
I know it’s stressful. I’ve been through it and I have a bug phobia so to have them on me was some kind of nightmare. But don’t worry – they will go away with consistency of combing and natural treatments. Just try to avoid the pesticides they sell in the stores because they can be harmful with continued use and I don’t see how you could not continuously use them if that’s all you use – they will keep coming back. Hope this helps someone else and you can avoid an embarrassing doctor’s trip like mine. 😉