My first response was "OMG what? Not my kid!" but there they were. I immediately got online and started researching what to do, how they got there, who to hunt down! Out of all five of my kids and all the years of raising them I have never had to deal with lice. This is our first case.
I looked through the articles online and read that most moms say the over the counter stuff doesn't work, (Great, now what?) so I dug deeper and began researching home remedies. I thought what the heck, before I rush out and spend a ton of money on things that might or might not work lets see what I've got in the pantry that might fix the issue.
There were a lot of posts that said to try Mayonaise and white vinagar. I knew from growing up in the 80's that mayo was good for your hair so I figured we would give it a go.
We slathered her head in mayonaise (Real mind you, not miracle whip. Only the best!)and put a plastic bag on her head for three hours. We heated it gently with the hair dryer (evidently they don't like heat) and crossed our fingers!
This is Busy (Isabel) with the bag on her head, oddly in a great mood for a kid distraught about the "bugs" in her hair. We call her Busybell, cause when she was a toddler she was into EVERYTHING. It's stuck and been shortened to Busy over the years. She is a very girly girl and not ten minutes before the pic was taken she was near hysterical about the whole thing.
So...we let that sit for three hours then into the shower we went. I rinsed and shampoo'd her head with the tea tree shampoo to get the mayo out then rinsed with the vinagar. Liberally. On to the combing with the nit comb. (go to the pet section and get the metal flea comb, the cheapo plastic combs that come in the kits break too easily) Two and a half hours of combing and picking the nits and we shampoo'd and conditioned with the tea tree shampoo and conditioner. I checked and double checked and triple checked her, then the others who were louse and nit free. Then I shampoo'd them with the tea tree stuff just to be on the safe side.
We vaccumed the mattresses on ALL the beds, stripped all the linens and washed them with hot water and laundry soap, adding liquid lysol to the wash cycles for good measure. Vaccumed the floors and furniture and sprayed them all down with disinfectant spray and I am currently washing all the bed linens, clothes, jackets, hats mittens...basically everything we own is getting the hot water and lysol treatment.
I took them into school this morning and had the nurse check us ALL over. Her amazed response was "Are you SURE she had lice yesterday?" I did such a good job of decontaminating us all she thought I might have made a mistake. LOL
Listen sister, I don't mess around! I am determined this will be our one and ONLY brush with this issue, evah! Still I guess one out of five kids is not too bad. It was bound to happen with them all in public schools. I am assured by all the MD websites that this is not a hygine issue but one that is all too common in public school systems.
I warned Busy's teacher and the nurse they should check the classroom and now all is right in the world, though....I admit my nerves are still jumping with phantom itchies, though I have been assured I did an excellent job and have nothing to worry about by the nursing staff at the elementary.
The upside to all this?
Busy is none the worse for the wear, mayonaise is an excellent deep conditioner and white vinagar rinse leaves your hair extra shiney!
My girly girl was thrilled!
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