Head Lice...how do get rid and stay rid of them!

Here in Australia children are no longer asked to stay home from school if they have nits( as they cary no comunicable disease it is considered a violation of the childs rights to deny them schooling, go figure) , thus the infection rate is epidemic. The constant use of chemicals is just not an opiton, and the majority of the little pests are resistant anyway. The recomended course of treatment is to fill the hair with cheap conditioner and comb through with a metal nit comb every second day for ten days. This actually works, but only in school holidays when they are not in contact with other students whose parents are not so dilligent.

I highly recomend the use of a daily tea-tree, spritz but also add lavender, pepermint and rose-geranium oil (about 3 drops of each in 500ml water shaken before each use), and keep the hair tied back in plaits or braids.
As for  removing them in the first place, I found coconut oil is far more efective than any other product at removing eggs. Pure coconut oil (I buy mine at an indian grocer) is rubbed liberally into the hair, and left for at least half an hour, if i find them in the morning I put it in before plaiting the hair for school. Then comb out with a metal nit comb, adding more oil to keep it sliding easily. Something in the oil seams to disolve the nits glue and they come out easily. To remove the oil first work a liberal amount of mild shampoo into hair before adding water to wash normaly.

Umm...  Sorry to discredit anything, as I can see you have put in a huge amount of effort here and I applaud you for that. Buuuuuuuut....

1. Lice don't jump. They can only crawl and use strands of hair to swing like little jungle vines.

2. Shampoo? I assume you mean the headlice shampoos that are supposed to kill the lice and nits? I personally am dead set against the idea of putting a toxic chemical insecticide (which is what these things are) in my own hair, let alone a child's hair. The conditioner and comb method is actually far more effective and less harmful. Just be aware that lice are actually becoming very resistant to these chemical solutions so they are getting very ineffective. Not to mention that most of the info about head lice comes from the companies that produce the toxic shampoos and treatments, and as they want to sell their product, they will state that their method is the only way to get rid of the lice... and many of those companies also produce teetree oil. Any brand of moose, gel, or vasaline brushed through the hair is more effective. But if you like the smell of teetree oil, go for your life and use it.

3. Clean clean clean??? Why make such a huge effort for something that can only survive whilst on the human head? Get them off your head and they don't take too long to die.

However, what you have written about headlice prevention and tying up hair and using hair spray - that does work very effectively. Not because the lice don't like the hairspray so much, but because the strands aren't blowing around and meeting up with other people's heads that do have lice, thus you are taking away their little swinging vines and main method of transportation.

I hope you aren't upset with me for this, but I'm hoping you might look further into this and edit your advice according to new findings, as you have done a brilliant job and I must say this... If your advice was about fleas, you'd be just about spot on!

I hate these little baggers. Where my kids go to school it is riddled with them. I use to shave both boys hair as I didn't want them getting nits. but now Jesse my 10 yr old is getting to the age where he is tacking an interest in how he looks and dose not want it shaved any more. Well last yr he had head lice that many times is was not funny.  The chemical shampoos do not work any more ( as they r still alive when I comb them out) I have been up to the front office and complained that he was coming home every couple months with them but all I got was there is nothing we can do.  My kids have been to a few different schools now but this current school is shocking for nits. I think every class at start of term and end of term should get a couple of parents in and do head checks. I know that it wont eliminate the head lice but surely it will decrease there numbers as I am so tired of my sons coming home just shortly after we got ride of them with nits yet again.

In the 60's and 70's the product used then was DDT and came in a small brown bottle and stunk to high heaven.  After my mother dosed us all, she would sit us on the floor in front of her and she would go through every strand until our heads were clean.  It would take hours and as kids we would get restless but she would not let up until she had finished.  When I became a mother, my children also became afflicted especially my son who had long curly locks.  You know the kind of hair women pay heaps for to get.  I dreaded having to cut his hair so I would sit him down and go through it strand by strand.  I did use the commercial products as well but I also knew that most of them would work only once and then the lice would become immune and so the tedious job of pulling them out was the new order of business.  The sunlight is the best light to use.  Nits close to the scalp are newly hatched.  The further along the hair the nits are the longer the infestation has been.  White nits are dead nits or 'hatched'.  The lighter coloured lice or kutus as we call them (NZ) are young and the bigger fatter ones are the layers big time.  Killing them is the only way to be rid of them.  You must be careful though because they do jump and if you don't kill it by clicking between thumb nails then they will find a new victim.  A friend shared this ditty with me.  She used to use fly spray on her child's head and wrap it in a towel or plastic bag.  Her child would scratch like buggery but it did kill all including the nits.  Tea tree oil is primo for  using as the lice don't like it.  It coats the hair and thus becomes a protectant.  The good old conditioner is the top notch.  You can actually turn it into a game if your child hates having their head cleaned.   I used to condition my boy's head and then over the bath, flick my fingers through his long locks and flick into the bath.  Afterwards we would look to see how many we caught and then click them and kill them.  Lice loved his beautiful hair and it was becoming a regular occurance, and so I had to come up with ways to get him to let me do his hair.  We have never had a problem since.  Its been ten years since.

When my eldest was around 16 months with a head full of thick curls (think Shirley Temple) she was infected with nits, so we tried all the normal nit treatments which included scrubbing the house from top to bottom, then 7 days later we did the whole tiring process once again.

After all our time and effort of ridding our house of nits our daughter was reinfected, so once again we did the normal process in the hope of banishing the evil, nasty things once again.

Come the 3rd time in a matter of 6 weeks of preparing to go into battle once again with the hideous creatures, I had had enough and was ready to throw out all soft furnishings, rip up carpeting, burn all soft toys and bedding and shave every head in the house, well that was until the lovely lady at the chemist gave me the sanity saving solution of using the good old conditioner treatment coupled with a daily dose of tea tree oil made up in a spray bottle with water.

To date our children and us have remained nit free, just over 8 years now *woohoo*

I also learnt that for children’s soft toys (teddy bears and what have you), it is easier to just peg them all on the line in full sun for a day or two, according to my step-mum the sun somehow kills off the nits.

We also vacuum our sofas once a week and give them a quick spray with the tea tree oil and water solution, same goes for all the bedding, every time we change the bedding we give it all a quick spray with tea tree oil just as an additional preventative.

*now if only I could stop scratching*

I have tried and it works, put any type of conditioner through the hair, the cheeper the better, lots of conditioner in dry hair, then comb through with a fine tooth comb, rub off the conditioner in the comb on a white piece of paper to see if there are any bugs in the hair. Aparently the conditioner stuns the adults, then get a nit egg rmover from your local chemist and follow directions. I must say that I am in Australia. Then treat the WHOLE family, including men's beards. Then everyone else that has daily contact should be treated as well.

When at school, if your child's school has a nit check, please make sure that they all wear gloves because that is also a way for the eggs to get transported to your childs hair.

I remember about 14 years ago, my second daughter was making her junior debut, about 9 weeks before hand she had nits, I did all the right things and got rid of them all, (at that time she had really long hair) she came home from school with them AGAIN, twice. I went to the school and told them that I was excluding her until they did something about it. I keep her home for 6 weeks. Yep, there was a kid in the class that was not being treated at home and was reinfecting everyone all the time. Now infected kids get sent home until treatment is done and they are nit free.

I agree that it is not a bad thing to have nits, it is just a pain with all the cleaning that has to be done.

Cheers Butterfly1956