Head lice questions ? Kids in our apartment complex has them

[MommytoB]

So should I just keep checking him when he gets home from school ?

What do lice stuff look like ?

Is there any way to prevent lice after being around kids who have lice ?

Also, would parents get their kids lice ?

[luv-my-boys]

whats up with lice lately, seriously there have been several posts about lice recently its making my head itch

this past yr was our first brush with "it" at one of my DS' preschool. Luckily we didnt get it but it was horrible as it was a resistant type of lice (to things like nix or rid) and the families that got it had a horrible time getting rid of it.

Because I was super paranoid I did everything possible to make sure we didnt catch it especially because we co sleep and really if 1 in my house gets it we ALL will have it. I ended up following my peds suggestions, not sure if any one thing helped or heck if anything helped but we didnt get it and literally more than 2/3 of the preschool got it

I bought this product http://www.liceguard.com/ and used it daily after school and on everyone for a few weeks. now I only use it on my child who goes to school. I also keep the fine tooth comb and when I shampoo their hair I do a quick combing at their nape of the head and around their ears as prevention (thats where they are supposed to like to attach nits)

We put TTO in our shampoo as they are supposed to not like the smell. I also made sure that my kid had "product" (hairspray,mouuse,gel)in his hair because its supposed to be harder for them to catch on to the hair in the first place.

during the initial outbreak I washed our sheets/linens often on the hottest settings basically to make me feel better.

The thing is is ANYONE can get lice, I always thought it was a "dirty" thing but after being reassured by my ped and seeing IRL people who got it I now know thats not the case so yes its possible for an adult to pass to a child.

[MommytoB]

did you just use the repellent or what products did you use there ?

[savithny]

DD came home from camp with them this summer. We appear to have defeated them.

First thing: Google for pictures, but remember they're much, much tinier than I thought they'd be. DH found them while doing a tick check and we spent a lot of time saying "Do you think? Nah. Maybe?"

I did a lot of research:

1) in some areas, 80% of lice are resistance to the over-the-counter pesticide shampoos. The prescription-only ones are seriously nasty pesticides (one has been banned in some states).

2) Lice are not all that easy to get, and are not little Nazi soldiers marching from head to head in search of conquest like the Arthur cartoon implies. They don't jump, they don't hop, and they don't leave heads. They get passed by serious head-to-head contact or by hat/brush/headband sharing.

3) Nits don't move. Only adult lice do.

4) Lice die off a head in 36-48 hours. Or in 20 minutes in a hot dryer.

5) It's very unlikely that a transferred nit would hatch successfully. They need to be on a human scalp at a certain very specific temperature.

After one try to see if Nix/Rid would work (it didn't), we went with the Cetaphil treatment. You can google it. It worked like a charm for us.

It seems, from reading people's experiences with it, that the keys are:
1) do it just like they say - get a squeeze bottle, use a LOT, get it all over every hair.
2) They say you don't really need to nit comb. But -- You *should* nit comb. Get a good metal one and go over every section of scalp, putting the comb against the head, pulling through and up, and then doing it in the other direction.
3) The main key to the cetaphil thing seems to be using the blow dryer to get it completely dry. They say it "shrink wraps" the hair and lice, but I suspect the fact that it took 45 minutes blow drying on HOT to get DD's hair dry also has something to do with it (see the 'lice die in the dryer" point above).
4) Repeat at the intervals they tell you to -- Most treatments dont' kill eggs. Lice hatch and spend several days feeding and growing before they mate an dlay new eggs. So you need to repeat the combing and treatment every few days (5, in this case) to kill newly hatched bugs before they can breed.