Head Lice
I'll be honest with you, I was really debating on doing a post on this topic but after a day of dealing with what I've been dealing with, I've decided that it's important that I do a post on head Lice. Yup, that's right...head Lice. Random I know, but the inevitable happened at my house this week. My daughter came home with a case of the head lice. I think we have all had it a time or two in our life times, and to be honest...it's down right embarrassing. But I want to go over it because I want to clear up a few misconceptions up about it.
Head lice is known to be a tiny little parasitic insect that makes a cozy home among human hairs and they feed on blood drawn from the scalp. Sounds disgusting right? It actually is, but believe me its a very common problem that shows no mercy or discrimination. I feel like there is a lot of misconceptions on who is more prone to head lice. Although it is most common in children, anyone can catch a case of the dreaded head lice. Doesn't matter age, sex or race. Doesn't mean that the host has poor hygiene. Just means that they were at the wrong place at the wrong time and if you ever been to school, you most likely have encountered it. And believe it or not, they actually prefer a cleaner scalp to a dirty one.
My daughter goes to an awesome clean pre-school and unfortunately a few weeks ago there was a case of head lice among one of her class mates. The director of the school was very helpful and sent out an email to inform all the parents and clue them in on what to look out for. A few weeks passed by and we thought we were golden, but then the other day it happened. A tiny little bug ran across her hair. What the heck was that, I was thinking. No way, she can't have lice. After inspecting her a little bit more, I came across a couple of more and quickly diagnosed her. The following is what you will need to get rid of the little buggers.
Now, you probably know by now I'm a sucker for home remedies, but with baby boy expected literally any day, I didn't want to take any chances. Luckily my mother is in town helping out before I have my son and has helped me treat my daughter Magnolias head lice. It's not an easy thing to treat, but it's totally doable. First things first, you need to make a little trip to the drug store. I had no idea how expensive the treatment could be! We used Rid and it was the cheapest a treatment at $19.99 for an 8 oz bottle. I wanted to get the big bottle because I don't want a repeat this scenario, especially with expecting my son any day. So I forced the whole household to get treated. Even my mom who has only been in town for a few days. I did buy the Walgreen's brand Stop Lice Egg & Nit comb because the one in the box was pretty much useless and that really helped as far as combing the nits out.
After reading the directions off of the box, it was pretty self explanatory. You apply to dry hair, let sit for 10 minutes to kill the little guys and then rinse. The hard part is you have to comb it out with a tiny little comb to get the louse and their nits ( eggs) out. Luckily at this point the louse were dead and combed right out but the most important part is to try to get all the eggs aka nits out. Because they are still alive and can easily hatch in a few days up to 10 days. I highly suggest retreating in 7-10 days to make sure because the nits actually hatch every 7-12 days then they turn into baby lice aka numpths that are the size of a tiny pinhead and then very quickly turn into an adult in 9-12 days, mate and start the whole cycle over again in just about 3-4 Weeks time.
After treating my daughters hair, I changed all sheets, pillows, her plush babies, car seat cover and threw them in a hot wash cycle and even put a tad of the treatment shampoo in for extra precaution. You then want to dry everything on high heat and that should take care of them right away. I also bought the Rid Spray and sprayed the couches...etc. It was a pain, but I think we won't have another outbreak in my household.
Have you ever experienced head lice? It's not picnic. If you have any suggestions on how you treated them, I'd love to hear about it.