Lice

We have had good success with the OTC Walgreens "Pesticide Free Lice Treatment Solution". You need to do something to kill the lice and nits, just a regular shampoo won't work. You do the treatment and comb out and then one week later comb again. Concurrent with the treatment you also need to launder EVERYTHING and vacuum EVERYTHING and stuffies should be washed or quarantined for a week at least. You also need to comb out absolutely every single hair, not just where you see the bugs because the nits (eggs) can be anywhere. We are doing weekly comb outs because we have an ongoing infestation at the school and are constantly getting re-exposed. If you want to be extra sure or don't want to do it yourself you can go to Nit Pixies - they are expensive but do a really good job. Good luck! 

We’ve also had an outbreak at our school (and speaking with friends and neighbors, this seems to be the case with many BUSD elementary schools). We have only had partial success with OTC shampoos & combing, so for efficiency and peace of mind, lice clinics have been a godsend. Pretty pricey, but costs associated with all the OTC shampoos and the risk of not eradicating the first time leading to more OTC shampoos and laundry not to mention the time needed made the clinic option a no brainer for us. Would recommend and go again if needed.

I would not even attempt to treat it yourself. I would go straight to Lice Removal Clinic of Castro  (call or text: +1 (510) 731-0888) and get their special heat treatment as soon as you’re able. I’d also make sure everyone else in the family gets professionally checked by them. 

If you do the shampoos, you must still do a thorough 2x daily comb through of everyone’s hair to remove any possible nits, or the infestation will never go away. 

Last summer my child came home from camp with the mildest lice infestation (1 louse and 2-3 nits). I only discovered it because I happened to see the bug. She was treated at Nit Pixies and they also checked me. I was told I didn’t have lice, so went home and began the epic cleaning. Out of an abundance of caution I decided to have my other daughter professionally checked (and a friend had told me Lice Removal Clinics in CV by then AND told me it was better in her many experiences).  I went there and also had my head checked just in case. Turned out we both had it, now worse than the original daughter because about a week had passed. 

They gave us treatments and TONS of tips for future mitigation. Based on their advice, I will still occasionally do a preventative oil treatment on my daughters after any likely exposures - birthday parties, camps, etc. 

I can’t recommend them enough. Good luck and godspeed! You’ll be on the other side of this soon. 

You can 100% get rid of lice without any chemicals - the keys are to be diligent, and to understand their life cycle. I did this successfully for my 2 kids years ago. (I did pay to have Nit Pixies do the original comb-through on my own hair, because I have long hair and it's hard to do on yourself.) Get a metal lice comb. Read up on how long lice can live off the human head (only about 24 hours), how they spread (it's not very far) and how long it takes the eggs to hatch. Learn what the eggs and lice look like - there are good pictures online. Round up everything that's come in contact with heads - bedding, stuffies, carseats, etc. - and either isolate it for a day or 2 or wash in hot water or run through a hot dryer. We just put most stuff in a plastic bag in the garage for a couple days. Then comb through the WHOLE head (roots to tips) of EVERY person in your household TWICE EVERY day for however long the egg-hatching cycle is - I think it took about 2 weeks. Good info here https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/head-lice-and-nits/.and https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1123177/. Good luck! It's icky but not impossible - think of it as a rite of passage. :)

Hello, sorry to hear about your lice. Our household dealt with it last month. We used a variety of OTC products to nuke it, including: Nix lice treatment and prevention, 100% Dimethicone oil, and Tex Labs Licefree kit. We also spent a fair amount of time each day combing nits out. Maybe one method would have been fine but we really wanted to be sure to get rid of it. Hope you are able to clear the lice infestation successfully. Good luck.

We had lice in December (daughter picked it up in preschool and gave to me and her younger sister) and it wasn’t as difficult as I was expecting it to be. I suspect my daughter had it for a few weeks before we discovered it (thought it was dandruff at first). We treated three times over a 10 ish day period with over the counter stuff - the first with Nix, the next two with a dimethicone based shampoo (think it was the Walgreens lice treatment). We tried to do nit removal as much as possible but my 3 YO wasn’t that cooperative with that so maybe did it for 5 ish minutes maybe 3-4 times. We did wash sheets and towels after each treatment and mostly quarantined her stuffies throughout. Good luck! Hope this passes quickly!

We dealt with lice at preschool last year. We used the nix OTC lice shampoo and had a good experience. It's recommended that you repeat the treatment after 7-10 days to get any lice that may have hatched from nits that you didn't find and comb out.

I washed all the laundry on hot and bagged stuffies and anything that can't be washed for 2 weeks. The lice can't survive longer than that without a host. 

For prevention we then used fairy tales rosemary repel shampoo and conditioning spray. We used the spray every day before school and on the nap mat.

The outbreak lasted a long time but we luckily only had them once.

My family learned the hard way about insecticide-resistant lice.  OTC lice treatment & combing with drug store lice combs did not work for 3/4 of our family members & we wound up going to a professional service.  In our case, I was finding still finding live bugs in my kiddo's hair after completing home treatment.  My kiddo had passed the lice inspections/head checks at school after the initial school case was identified & we hadn't seen anything in his hair at home.  However, when his head began to itch, we were in for it.  I learned that by the time the head is itching/live bugs have hatched, the lice have already been afoot for several weeks (something like 6 weeks, if I remember correctly?), meaning they've had lots of time to infect other family members. 

I thought that myself and my toddler were in the clear (light hair) after a home check & prophylactic treatment, but the professional service found nits & nymphs in both of us.  They also found & combed out quite a bit from my son's head (dark hair) that the at-home combing & treating hadn't gotten.  There are various local franchises that will do treatments with a multi-step process of combing hair with industrial special-design lice comb (look up nit free terminator comb) + mousse, then dousing hair with dimethicone oil (silicone-based oil that suffocates the lice) & sitting under a heat lamp with the dimethicone.  They send you home in a shower cap, with the oil still in your hair, to rinse out at home.  The professional places usually offer you a "free" re-check within 30-days of treatment w/ an additional round of treatment at no  extra cost if they find any additional bugs/nits/lice when you go back for a re-check.

The professional services are quite expensive and you can buy the products and emulate the professional services at home; however, the professionals knew what they were doing/looking for and were we ever to get lice again, I'd skip the OTC treatments and go straight to the professionals. We wound up at a place in Concord because they had a same-day appointment, but there are other, closer options as well.

Good luck, it's a HUGE PAIN to deal with!!

Hello,

Our household had lice. It was detected when my child went for a haircut and the stylist found 1 live louse. An embarrassment, to say the least. But it explained why my head had been itching like crazy for the past month. 

I am not a big fan of pesticides but I know medicated shampoos are  prescribed and generally successful. But we rid our home of lice without using any special medication, just using a particular comb: NitFree Terminator/Terminator Lice comb, found for $12.99 on Amazon. The website TheNiceLiceLady provided a great technique involving hair conditioner for removal. After a day or 2, I would just comb through my hair without conditioner with a glass of water to put the lice or eggs in. There were 10's of lice and eggs on the first day then only a few over the next few days.(Morbidly fascinating, to be honest.) But then, with twice  a day combing alone, there were no more lice or eggs after about 4-5 days for me, none after 2 days for my child. I can't recall if I used a hair dryer, probably the first or second time I combed it out. 

I washed all the sheets and anything that might have touched our heads in hot water and dried on high. I put the pillows in plastic bags for 10 days. A wikiHow web page on "how to clean after lice" is a nice summary.

All clear after 5 days. No chemicals, just really attentive to combing. We have fairly straight hair, maybe a slight wave, which may have made this easier. No recurrence. Good luck!

From The American Academy of Pediatrics from a free article titled, "Head Lice":

Criteria for Return to School

A child or adolescent should not be restricted from school attendance because of head lice, given the low contagion within classrooms.71  “No-nit” policies that exclude children or adolescents until all nits are removed may violate a child’s or adolescent’s civil liberties and are best addressed with legal counsel for schools. Most health care professionals who care for children or adolescents agree that no-nit policies should be abandoned.79  International guidelines for the effective control of head lice infestations have stated that no-nit policies are unjust and should be discontinued, because they are based on misinformation rather than objective science.81  The AAP and the National Association of School Nurses82  discourage no-nit policies that exclude children or adolescents from school. Additional information that may be used by providers and caregivers to counter school no-nit policies may be found on the CDC Web site.83 

It's been many years since I had to deal with our child's elementary school infestation, but you are on the right track here. The lice are resistant to poison, and who wants to put poison on their kid's head over and over? 

It's crucial to understand the life cycle of the insect and how it's spread: hair to hair, not object to object, nor bedding nor stuffies. They don't live long off of the body, and the eggs are glued to the hair so they can't fall off. Be sure to read up on the cycle so that you can comb effectively to rid your child of the insects before they get to the egg-laying stage. Here's a useful website: https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/what-is-head-lice-li…

We've found the lice removal businesses work really well, followed by anti-lice shampoo for a few weeks.

My daughter and I (yes, I caught it from her) had success with OTC Nix treatment as recently as 3 months ago.  It is not a shampoo, it is an oily substance that doesn't fully wash out of your hair for a few days.  Other preschool parents have had success going to Nit Pickies to have a professional kill the bugs.  

We had a lice scare about a year ago where we found a nit in our child's hair which we later learned was from a classmate, and this is the immediate course of action we took:

• Bought Nix Ultra Lice Treatment that SAME day and shampooed EVERYONE's hair who lived under the same roof as our child, for two straight days...maybe it was over the top, but I was not taking any chances;
• Immediately stripped all bed linens (bedsheets, pillowcase, duvets, etc) and washed them using hot water;
• Washed all pillows and blankets and comforters in hot water; 
• Bagged up all stuffies and any toys that could potentially be carrying the nits and/or their eggs, and kept them bagged up for at least two weeks (apparently the eggs can take up to 9 days to hatch but once hatched, they'll die if they have nothing to feed on);
• Vacuumed every inch of the house that had rugs/carpets;
• For the next 5-7 days, we meticulously combed through everyone's hair with the lice comb, looking for any suriving nits and/or eggs. We didn't come across any...and it seems like the treatment and follow-up worked as we haven't dealth with lice since (fingers crossed as there seems to be an outbreak at every single school at the moment!).
• For myself, as I have long hair, I even used a flat iron to try and kill off any potential eggs that might be in my own head (I was so beyond paranoid);
• We also started spraying our kids hair with a lice repellant spray called "Fairy Tales Rosemary Repel Conditioning Spray" -- I don't know if this actually helps, but so far, so good.

All of this seems a bit bonkers, but I really wanted to make sure we didn't continue carrying the nits and/or the eggs. All to say, I don't think just shampooing is enough, I fear you may need to do a deep cleaning of linens and such. Shampooing may kill off the nits in the hair, but eggs sometimes survive the shampooing, and that's why a week later, people discover them once more...the same goes for reusing pillowcases, blankets and toys that are likely to carry the eggs...it was a bit of a nightmare for some time, but the extra cleaning helped. Good luck!!

I tried to do it myself and it didn’t work well that well. I ended up using a service with a 30 day guarantee and it was great. For reference, I used Lice Removal Services in Castro Valley. 

If you really want to go the way of the shampoo and comb, the comb that was recommended to me is the Terminator Lice Comb and the kit is Lice Treatment Kit by Lice Clinics. My kids didn’t complain that it burned or anything and they used it at the clinic too. 

Hi, by some miracle we evaded the Lice Experience until 5th grade, last year. Sharing three of our takeaways:

1. Recent lice treatment is not about pesticides but rather uses materials that suffocate the adult lice. We used Nix Ultra Lice Treatment (has paraffin) from the drugstore. 
2. Need to kill the adult lice and the nits (eggs). Nits can withstand the suffocation apparently, so you will need to keep combing them out until there are no more and no adults to lay more. 
3. Lice expert (from business that was too far for us to go to) said her tool of choice, hands down, is a stainless steel comb called The Terminator. We like the micro-grooved teeth and it feels substantial. 

Keep on it with the combing and checking. I quarantined things for a week just in case. Reminded kiddo to not get their head too close to other kiddos' heads (like while doing group work) as lice transfer head to head. 

Good luck, this too shall pass! 

We didn't use the shampoos. The school outbreaks came fairly regularly in past years. 

First time we did Cetaphil in hair/suran wrap, the second time-- something like benz something? Special alcohol mixed w shampoo. The third time we just combed every day twice a day for weeks. 

The first time I bagged up everything and washed everything. Second time I put most stuff in the dryer for a recommended amount of time. The third time I just washed/dryer the bedding. 

I saw no difference in results for any if the times. It's mostly about combing and combing. .

Friends really liked a salon that went through their hair and removed all nits, etc. 

I don't know how they're so contagious in schools. It's crazy. 

My kids are older and we haven't had to deal with lice for about 10 years, but even 10 years ago the lice shampoos were not that effective. We ended up getting rid of them just by combing. We found a super informative and useful website called The Lice Program (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/theliceprogram/theprogram.html) which describes the life cycle and has a 3 week schedule for when to comb to be sure to remove all the lice and eggs, etc. It may be more than you need if you are very lucky, but if you keep finding them you may want to be systematic about it. You don't have to worry too much about stuffed animals and other things, just focus on the hair. 

We tried OTC lice killers and they didn’t work. We had success with Sklice (used to be prescription but now over the counter) and spinosad (prescription). 
We also went to Lice Control that used to be on Shattuck in north Oakland and they had a heat treatment that got rid of everything that a combout missed. 
We also tried nit pixies but it was a waste of time and money, and it also delayed getting rid of the lice because we relied on them and they didn’t take care of the problem. 
Good luck!

We recently had a lice outbreak and the biggest recommendation I can give is make sure a professional checks everyone's head at school if they haven't already. Lice was floating around our preschool for months and the kids kept passing it back to one another (we had it 3 times). They eventually had nit pixies come and it was $10 per kid for them to get checked.

We were able to treat it with the Nix shampoos, lots of laundry, and vacuuming. Your hot water heater should be at 130 to kill them (it's likely at 120 if you have kids). I also recommend doing multiple treatments a week apart until you no longer see a live one. The shampoo doesn't kill the eggs (despite what the bottle says). You have to comb them out. But if you miss one, it could restart the cycle - hence keep treating.

Also a trick I learned for finding them - comb your child's hair with conditioner in it. Lice can move super fast and you may miss them. But they can't move quickly with conditioner in. Just note you have to rewash your hair if you do a treatment, because conditioner makes it less effective.