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lice treatment?

3K views 11 replies 10 participants last post by  miss_sonja 
#1 ·
Natural treatment for possibility of lice?

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I'm not sure exactly whre this belongs, so I'll probably X-post it.

So today my ds, first grade, comes home with a big red handout in his bag that says lice has been found in his class. So I ask him if he knows who has lice, turns out to be his best friend. So I am pretty much expecting him to have it too. I haven't been able to stop squeaming since he got home, but He doesn't have any symptoms yet, so I am wondering if there is anything natural I can do to help prevent any nits from hatching, if there are any, and what I can do if he does end up with lice. I want to try something more natural if possible. Any ideas.
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#2 ·
i'm a pS teacher and we have lice problesm a few times a year.

i use a LOT of hair oils to keep them away. lice do not like oil. i do one olive oil treatment per week (i put a lot of olive oil in my hair with a few drops of tea tree oil and let it sit for awhile.. a half hour to a few hours.. then it takes a good amount of time to rinse. baking soda and dish detergent cut it quickly)

then in general, i put oil in every bath i take so that it absorbs into my hair, and i put oil in my hair after every hair washing.
 
#3 ·
Vinegar rinse the hair, do not rinse out, just dry, the odor evaporates by morning. The vinegar prevents the eggs from attaching to the hair shaft.

TTO in the shampoo bottle to keep them away.

Mayo mix with vinegar is the best lice killer out there (Mayo itself works, Olive Oil itself also works, but slowly and I was combing out squirmers). But if the child has bites the vinegar burns, I did this to my poor baby.

Change the sheets everyday during an infestation for 2 weeks!

Eucalyptus oil in the rinse of the washer.
 
#4 ·
Just go buy yourself a lice comb form the store and comb comb comb. One of my children recently got lice. We home school so of course I didn't know we had it until "I" got it.
: We never had any adults, just eggs and hatchlings. (It turned up about a week after DD's friend stayed the night and I am wondering if that is where it came from.)

I went and bought myself some combs from the store and we just keep combing everyones hair. The combs will pull the eggs out as well as anything live.

Also make sure to wash all bedding and put it in the hot dryer for at least 30 minutes. Anything that can't go in the dryer can go in a plastic bag in the garage for a could weeks and vaccuum all your furniture.
 
#5 ·
You've gotten great suggestions so far. I hope he doesn't have it! If he does, you may consider gelling his hair before school each day. Lice don't like hair products. My friend is a school teacher and she sprays her hair each morning and gels her kids hair.
 
#6 ·
Thank you so much for all the suggestions, I'm getting ready to go out and get a shower cap, a comb, and grease him up. And lots of wash. does anyone know if my pets could get it, he lays all over the dog. I can't imagine trying to comb through him with a little comb!
 
#7 ·
Yes, technically your pets could get it, but its not likely unless you've been infested for a long time. Also, if you can, take all the stuffed animals and pillows and bag them up in a sealed garbage bag for at least 2 weeks. Spray your matresses and furniture down with a strong TTO mixture (I love Sol-U-Mel from Melaleuca).

I would also rub a bit of TTO or Eucalyptus into your guy's hair every day before school, preferably with a good heavy oil, like coconut. HTH.
 
#9 ·
I posted this a long time ago, but here it is again. Good luck!

I saved this for a rainy day...and good thing I have, it's vanished from the web. You do realise that Nix and other treatments are toxic to your kids as well as the lice? Just be aware of that if you decide to use it.

KILL RESISTANT HEAD LICE.

Use the "MAESWAY METHOD"

My Gift to Mums and Dads everywhere.

History.
The day my two girls came home from school with notes about head lice, I
was mortified to find that they were in fact, infested, along with many
of their friends and schoolmates. Then followed eight or nine weeks with
many hair treatments and expensive pharmacy medications, much changing
and washing of bedding and various house cleanings said to prevent
reinfestation. With no clear improvement after all this work, it was
obvious we had insecticide resistant lice. My nerves and my precarious
family budget had taken a beating and I was as mad as hell.

If you are as angry and frustrated as I was at the hours and money
ineffectually squandered on lice control, read on. This is how I beat
resistant head lice in my childrens long thick hair, without using
dangerous pesticides, without using smelly chemicals, without washing
bedding several times a week, without endless hours of nit picking, and
without straining the meagre family budget.

After a lot of experimentation I had found that a very strong salt solution
killed active lice.(See note 1 below) My budget could still manage
salt, so I then tried various salted g
oo mixes on my head until I found
one that stayed in place and was simple to remove. Words cannot express
the tremendous satisfaction of combing only dead lice out of the childrens
hair after having used my cheap, easily made mixture. An additional
bonus was that the whole procedure was acceptable to the kids. It seems
unlikely that my idea is totally original. Anything so effective must surely
surface somewhere.

Method:
Take one regular bottle of bath or shower gel (See note 2 below) and add
one sixth of its volume of ordinary dry table salt (See note 3 below).
Mixing gently will produce a thickish gritty liquid . Allow to stand 30
mins, stir gently and then transfer to a ketchup type squeeze bottle
with a nozzle for application. This is by far the easiest method of
application. Some undissolved salt is normal. Ignore.

Application:
Provide a face towel to keep the mix out of eyes. Do not apply unless
you are sure that you have sufficient water to rinse the mixture off.
Apply the mixture to a dry head so that the hair is coated from root to tip
leaving no dry areas as hiding places for lice. Be generous in the
application. A full head of hair may take 6 ounces/180 ml. or more. Tie
the hair into a scarf and set the kids to watch TV or other quiet activity.
Leave the salt/gel on the head 30 to 60 mins then shower off or rinse
with plenty of water. The use of a good lice comb (See note 4 below)
should show dead lice. Then you know that you are well on the road
to success.

Continued Treatment:
Repeat the mixture application every 4 days for 5 treatments. This
ensures that you are well in front of the normal breed/hatch life cycle
of head lice. (See note 5 below). If any lice escaped the first
treatment, if any hatched in the meantime, or if any chanced to find
their way back to the head from bedding or soft toys, they are going to
be killed in the next treatment before they have had a chance to lay
eggs(nits). I no longer worry about nits, or try to pick them out. As long
as no new eggs are laid the old egg cases(nits) will eventually be removed
through normal hair care. If one of your children has head lice, there is a
strong possibility that some or all of the others are also infested. Much
work can often be saved by treating all alike. Maybe parents too!

Be Watchful.
With the treatment finished and all heads clear of lice, be alert to the
possibility of re-infestation from other children. Regular inspection is
essential. Here's how. Damp the hair and apply conditioner. Comb
through with a good lice comb carefully checking for lice. Do this
perhaps every 7 to 10 days and immediately restart the treatment if
you see lice. Do not wait for the kids to complain of an itchy head.
You should seriously consider treating the whole family likewise, as
a precaution. If nothing else, it stops adults from itching when thinking
of head lice!!!

Feel good.
I feel I have regained control of my life after using this method of
lice control. For two girls with long hair this regime only adds about
20 mins a week to their normal hygiene routines. This method has
saved me much time and money and taken all of the frustration out
of lice control. Best of all, I know I shall be in control if re-infestation
ever occurs.

Publish, and be thanked!
I am posting this in the sincere hope that YOU will help me to give this
treatment method the widest possible distribution. There must be a huge
number of people at their wits end dealing with this all too common
problem. Help them to help themselves by printing and sharing this
letter.
Email to friends and relatives. Your PTA and youth organisations would
also help to spread the word far and wide. Your help in this is eagerly
sought and will most certainly be appreciated. Please make every effort
to send this message in it's entirety so that the recipients can also
pass it on complete. If you are able to translate this into other
languages and distribute, please feel free to do so. It may not be
possible to rid the world of head lice, but we can go a long way towards
reducing the nuisance value of these pests and to remove much of the
social stigma attached to them.

Questions:
If you email questions that I am capable of answering, I will post a
follow up with the collected answers. I am not an expert, just a mother.
I am sorry, but I lack the time to enter into individual correspondence.

Contact.
We would be thrilled to receive short notes by regular mail telling how the
treatment went. The girls are keen on postage stamps and this would
also provide a welcome source of new stamps. Small donations towards
the girls education would be welcome, but do not feel obliged in any way.
We always scrape by somehow. Our thoughts and our thanks are with
you.

Mae Loat
PO Box 402
Box Hill Victoria
Australia 3128

maeloat@netspace.net.au

Note 1.
Death by salt probably occurs by loss of body fluids through
soft membranes and body openings. This is just my theory.

Note 2.
Shower/bath gels are not created equal. If the product you try collapses
to a thin liquid once the salt is added, try another brand. Here in
Australia I used "Dencorub" mineral bath gel. Before trying this on my girls
I used the treatment on myself. After a 2 hour test the goo rinsed out of my
hair easily, and apart from a little skin dryness had no other effects. If
you or your children have sensitive skin, prudence would suggest a small
test of the solution.

Note 3
The salt gel is composed of: Six parts of shower or bath gel, gently
mixed with One part of granulated table salt. Example 1: 20 ounce bottle
of bath/shower gel ( 20 divided by 6 ) equals 3.3 ounces of dry
granulated table salt to be added. Example 2: 375ml bottle of bath/shower
gel (375 divided by 6) equals 62.5 ml of dry granulated table salt to be
added.
Please note that the dry volume of granulated table salt is near equal
to its weight. So that 3.3 ounces of table salt by dry volume measure
would in fact weigh near enough to 3.3 ounces for our purpose. Equally,
62.5 ml dry volume measure table salt weighs close to 62.5 grams. If you
have sensitive scales you can measure by weight if you prefer. Minor
variations of gel to salt ratio appear to be of no real significance.

Note 4.
Get an efficient lice comb. The ones with short tines are useless and rip
the hair. Kids hate them because they hurt. I now use a lice comb with
long round metal tines that slips through wet hair and is really
effective on lice, dead or alive. The one I use is called a
"LiceMeister" but there are others on the market. Any good pharmacy will
order items not currently stocked. If you do nothing else, you must do
this. If you have ordered a comb, you may wish to start the treatment
and then check the results later when the comb arrives. Not ideal, but
much better than doing nothing.

Note 5.
If one application is skipped for any reason, make every effort to apply
the treatment on the following day, and every 4 days after that until
completed. Skipping applications completely may lead to hardy head lice
being able to lay eggs and start the cycle all over again. Avoid this if
at all possible.
 
#10 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by InfoisPower
I saved this for a rainy day...and good thing I have, it's vanished from the web. You do realise that Nix and other treatments are toxic to your kids as well as the lice? Just be aware of that if you decide to use it.
Thank you so much for the info. The toxicity of the over the counter lice treatments is what sent me running for MDC! It's a neurotoxin used as a pesticide, isn't it? I knew I could get some natural aswers here.
 
#11 ·
Just found this elsewhere:

1/2C vegetable oil, 10 drops tea tree, 10 drops rosemary, 5 drops lemon, 5 drops lavendar. Work intro dry hair, cover with plastic and let sit for 20 min. Comb nits out with nit comb, wash hair to remove oil (usually takes about 3-4 good washes) and a blowdry on HOT. This worked every time. We then added tea tree oil to the shampoo to prevent, then used tea tree oil mixed with water to spray on furniture, and also added some tea tree oil to the linen laundry loads.
 
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