We knew this day would come. Lice…yuck!
As we struggle to contain the lice outbreak on our kids’ heads, we share the following resources and insights:
- Think carefully before using pharmaceutical lice remedies like Nix. They are based on a natural derivative from chyrsanthemums, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily safe or effective. At the very least, you may find that your household gets MORE itchy before it gets LESS itchy. (That’s how it worked over here.)
- Don’t just treat your household. Ensure your daycare or school CAREFULLY examines all kids’ heads, and commits parents to treating kids with lice or nits.
- Educate yourself. The most detailed resources we’ve found are at http://www.headlice.org
- Spring for the fancy tools. The plastic lice combs that come with most lice treatment products don’t begin to do the job. The tea tree oil-based Lice Stop product available at natural health stores contains a much better, metal comb; you can also buy a higher a quality comb from your pharmacist.
- Expect to spend a lot of time and money solving the problem. We’re currently spending 2-3 hours per night going over each head with a finetooth comb; and we’ve already spent $100 having bedding and clothing laundered after we ran out of hot water. (To kill lice, you have to use HOT water and HOT dryer heat.)
- Consider getting professional help. We’ve just called in the pros at http://www.lice911.ca to make sure we get the job 100% done.
- Build lice checks into your routine. We realize our little one has likely had this problem for a while. If we’d been doing weekly lice checks, we could have tackled this problem much earlier, and had an easier time of it. From now on, we’re doing weekly checks on each kid.
- Whatever you do, don’t blog about your family’s lice. It will only lead to trouble. I’m just sure of it.
Recent Comments