head lice, we keep treating for them do everything u can think of, but they keep comming back HELP!!!!!!!!?

Question

ok the deal is that my daughter 4, neice 9, live with my sister and I, they got head lice about 6weeks ago, sooooo we washed everything from carpets, bedding, car seat, toys our selfs you name it, we either washed it threw it out, sprayed it, bagged it, flipped it you name it we did it. We've enen to the point o where one of the scratch at all were on it and doing it all over again, for weeks. Well their back. What to do???????/

Answer 1

Wow... do I know how you feel. My daughter had them 2 years ago. I treated her over 12 times with RID and NIX. She was getting them from a kid at school and the school was doing nothing about it. Every time she came home I would clean the house from top to bottom. I would wash everything all over again. What a headache. This wen ton for 3 months. The ONLY treament that worked was a product called Lice R Gone. It is all natural. It is a patented product.

LRG contains the same enzymes that the lice needs in order to shed (molt) itself so it can grow. However, LRG actually destroys the lice, and is the only product on the market to actually DISSOLVE the glue from the nit/hair shaft. It is also very cheap considering the cost per use. We got over 18 uses out of one bottle, and the bottle cost only $20 at the time. Now it costs $22. Since you have used pesticides on the hair, LRG needs to stay in the hair for about 30 minutes to work. Here is the best part..... just shampoo out and use a bunch of conditioner afterwards. No need to use the NIT comb. I am telling you this is awesome stuff! My daughter uses it still to this day when she feels that she might have been exposed and we have not had an outbreak since the first shampooing. My friend just dealt with lice and my friend used this stuff and has not had any porblems either.

Lice can only live for 55 hours without food. In other words, treat the head and clean up, but treating the source is the best way.

Lice R Gone ® is an enzyme based product that....

* is completely biodegradable upon application;
* has no residual contamination;
* has such low toxicity it is essentially harmless to people, pets, wildlife and crops;
* is quick acting and totally effective against head lice and their nits;
* does not induce resistance in treated pest populations.

The last statement is also very important. Lice are becoming resistant to RID and NIX products. The lice can never become resistant to LICE R GONE as it is enzyme based.

After spending over $100 on other products, and treating this nightmare for over 3 months, one treatment of Lice r Gone stopped it forever.

Oh, yeah, by the way did you know that using RID and NIX more than once has been shown to produce medical problems in kids? Yep! Lice R Gone was the best $20 I ever spent!

Answer 2

Ok, it sounds like you are doing everything you should. I am going to tell you what I did when my kids brought those little buggers to me.

1. I BOILED all clothing. Even if it was clean, it was boiled. Then I washed it. I threw in some Tea Tree Oil because Lice HATE that stuff.

2. My son has TONS of stuffed animals so we put them in bags and squeezed out all the air [thus they couldn't breathe] and put them in the sun. If it's cold where you are I'm sure that would freeze them.

3. Shampoo the carpets. You'll need to do this more than once because they can keep living or maybe you miss some.

4. Vacuum the bed and car stuff.

5. Wash all bedding.

6. Bleach the walls the lice can live on the walls. My husband actually had to take a seminar on lice because he worked in a homeless shelter and saw a lot of lice.

7. Get some Olive oil and get the hair all wet with it. Put a plastic shower cap over the hair and have it be as air tight as possible. Leave it on for as long as possible. They usually recommend over night but with a child of four I wouldn't leave it on at night because it might suffacate her. Put it on early in the morning and leave it on all day. Rinse hair with vinegar. Comb,. comb, comb. Remember to do it again 7-10 days later [all of it] because new nits can hatch.

8. Put some Tea Tree Oil in your shampoo. It stinks but it works great at making the lice stay away. My son's head start teacher told us that one. As soon as we did that we stopped having lice. Tea Tree Oil is also used in very expensive hair conditioners. I bought a bottle of it for 25 dollars for very little. You can get the oil at Walmart {I think} and health food stores. It's expensive, a bit, but it's worth it in the long run.

9. If you have done ALL that and STILL you all have it get to the doctors. Years back [about 6] my ex husbands daughter kept getting it. No matter what we did it wouldn't go away. We took her to the doctors and he says the lice are getting stronger and immune to the medicated soaps. So he prescribed a stronger one.

PS You CANNOT get lice from pets!

Answer 3

The first thing to do is to go to the doc and get a prescription. Many over the counter shampoos are not useful anymore - tand those little buggers are heartier than they used to be! Next, make sure every single nit is out of the hair. A nice little bob cut might be necessary to keep the kids hair up out of the way in case it is a carrier at school passing it on. VAcuum everything again and again, bag stuff up for a month. Hot water with bleach is a good choice. Remember jackets, hair clips, sweaters - you did good remembering car seats- people always forget those!
Ask at school if there have been other cases. It is likely that if it was 6 weeks that someone else has it and is not doing such a thorough job as you. Talk to the girls about how to keep clean - don't hang your coat near anyone elses, don't lean over friends and let your hair touch, don't use anyone else's brush, etc... Don't borrow anyone's jacket!! I have also heard that tea tree oil can keep them away. You could put a little in their hair , or use a shampoo that has it in it. Worth a try!

Answer 4

My daughter got head lice from a daycare when she was 4. I did everything that you say you've done and had the same issue - we just couldn't get rid of them!

I hate to say this (really - I do) but the thing I had to do to rid my daughter of the lice completely was to cut all her hair off. It was a really horrible thing to have to do -BUT- it worked. If you can't bring it upon yourself to cut all the hair off (which would be completely understandable), even cutting it short would probably work. At least when it's short you can get the nits out better (and see them better too).

If you don't want to cut the hair, maybe a call to the doctor would be a good idea. Ask if there's a prescription treatment for lice that could be prescribed. Also ask if they have any other suggestions besides what you've been doing.

I know dealing with lice is not fun. Good luck!

P.S. Another thing you could try is drowning the girls' heads with vegetable oil or mayo and putting a shower cap on for 24 hours. I've heard that the lice suffocate this way.

Answer 5

My daughter first had them when she was 3yrs and in nursery and I nearly fainted when I saw them. I had worked with kids all my life and luckily had never encountered these horriable things. I did as you did and treated her hair and scrubed everything. Though the treatments were quite harsh and smelly. The facts of nits are they cant jump and are caught only by close contact so if the girls have long hair keep it tied up. Also in our area we go to the local pharmacy to see what treatment we should use as it is rotated as the lice become immune to it. Also it's not true they only like clean heads. The problem is sometimes parents only treat once and they have not killed the eggs that haven't hatched so you should always wait a week and re-treat. Also you should check their heads once a week, with the wet combing method where the hair is washed and then conditioned, then combed through with a louse detection comb. Also if there is an outbreak you can leave the conditioner in the hair as it makes it harder for the adult lice to attach the eggs. Head lice take up to 10 days to hatch. Baby lice take 6-14 days to become fully grown and it is after this that they will take the oppurtunity to move from head to head during close contact. Younger lice tend to remain for a minimum of 6 days on the head where they were hatched. I am an Aromatherapist an when I know that there is an outbreak at school I make up a shampoo to act as a deterent and so far it has worked or you can make up a lotion with essential oils, though not for under 3 years old, 25 drops of Rosemary, 12 drops of Eucalyptus, 13 drops of Geranium, 25 drops of Lavender and mix it in 3fl oz of vegetable oil and comb through the hair and leave on and tie hair up. Hope this helps

Answer 6

Ok... here's a sure fire solution to your problem.... I know because I dealt with the same problem when my daughter was 6 with long hair and another student's parents didn't treat the problem the right way, so we kept getting them back in our house. After $300.00 on head lice shampoo, I was walking down the pet aisle and noticed on a bottle of Hartz dog dip that it treated lice. Now it doesn't say this anymore, but stop and think about it - head lice to us is like fleas to dogs. So, I bought a bottle of dip, a few spray bottles and went home and proceeded to whip up a gallon of dip. I sprayed everything! Then, every other day, I used the dip on everyone's hair in the family. In between treatments, I used hot oil treatments to keep from getting dandruff.

It says on the side of the bottle - not for use by humans, but what you need to know is that dogs skin is more sensitive than humans, so if they can tolerate it, you know we can. Just be careful not to get in your eyes. When you put the solution on your head, let it soak in for about 10 min. Once you are rid of these little buggers, make sure that every day, you put hairspray on your hair, gel, something. Reason being, they can't attach their eggs to a dirty hair shaft. They can only attach to clean hair.

Luck!

Answer 7

Use Nix it is the only thing that will work! Then after shampooing their hair comb through every last inch with one of those tiny lice combs. Then do the other stuff like cleaning and bagging, but lice can not live off a head for more then 48 hours. Good luck my husband panics at the word lice.

Answer 8

First, you all may be getting lice over and over not because you are not do this correctly, but rather re catching it from another source. IE, daycare, school, work or being around others that are not treating.
Second, Mayonnaise on your hair works very well instead of the Chemical products. Simply coat hair with Mayo, comb with regular comb, then wrap in Saran wrap and leave in for 3 hours or more. Wash, then comb with lice comb. Retreat after 1 week.
Third, don't forget to treat your automobiles with spray to kill lice on seats, carpets and headliner.
Fourth, if kids go to school or daycare, or even your work or church, make them aware so that they also can treat themselves and family members to reduce re catching. Hope this helps.

Answer 9

Use rid shampoo and spray. Wash everything again, put pillows in a dryer for atleast 15 min., spray all furniture, and make sure the school/daycare doesn't have any carpet. If they do, make them get it cleaned. Also, make them check all the other kids for lice and don't let them come back until they've gotten rid of it. If they don't send the kids home, they will keep passing it around and we both know this is not cheap! GOOD LUCK!!!

Answer 10

My kids had the same problem and I tried everything. The only thing that seemed to work for them was a ROBI comb. You can buy them at Wal-mart and they are on the aisle with the lice shampoos. They are a little bit pricey but are so worth the money. I bought one and my kids have been lice free since. I also put a little bit of styling products(mousse, gel, or hairspray) in their hair to keep the lice from coming back. If you have product in your hair, the lice can't stick to it. Lice thrive off of clean hair so when you put product in it, it makes it very difficult for lice to cling to the hair. Good Luck!!!