If you follow The Golden Gleam's Facebook page, you already know we have had lice in our family. The only fact that I can honestly verify is that lice suck in more ways than one.
But since my faithful readers deserve more, I am sharing these five facts about lice I have learned from being deep in the trenches with these blood thirsty parasites.
Facts About Lice
Tree Hugging Earth Mama will embrace waste, excessive consumption, and toxic chemicals.
Yup, I won't use pesticides on my grass, yet I shampooed my children's scalps with lice killing shampoo. All brushes and hair accessories were thrown in the garbage can. And clothing, bedding, and linens are only used once consequently wasting enough water to fill a small lake with all the washing machine water.
Daily combing of hair is a strenuous exercise routine.
Thankfully, I only had one child with a bad case of lice. Not so thankfully, she had a very bad case of it. For a week, I was combing her hair for a total of two hours a day.
I have a new found appreciation for hair stylists. Each night my body ached when I went to bed.
Slick and greasy will be the new hairstyle in the home.
Conventional thought is that lice love clean hair. So no more washing hair at every bath. Olive oil with a couple of drops of tea tree oil is applied daily to hair.
While the oil makes my kids' thick, beautiful hair even more luscious, it makes my thin hair look dirty. Yup, I have been subjecting myself to the school pick up line looking like I haven't showered in two weeks.
Crazy, rash decisions will be made.
I chopped off my younger girls' hair. After almost an entire week of still finding lots of live lice in one daughter's hair during combing, I felt defeated.
I grabbed the scissors and cut their shoulder length hair to their ears. Oddly enough, the lice situation improved dramatically after I cut their hair. Maybe it wasn't so crazy after all.
Finding bugs in your child's hair stops being disgusting.
When I first found live lice in my daughter's hair, I was revolted and felt like I was the worst mother in the world.
After awhile the feeling changed, I began to feel like a victorious slayer of the evil creatures each time I washed them down the drain with hot water.
I came up with silly little couplets like "If you bite my daughters head, you will be dead."
Since I was too tired from dealing with lice to do a very good job of mothering, I still felt like a pretty crappy mother.
So, that's the down and dirty, honest and a little bit funny truth about lice.
I hope you never have to deal with it in your family. If you have had lice, what facts can you share about lice?
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13 comments:
Hi Rebecca,
Here in Europe lice is a pretty common childhood "malady". It is unrelated to hygiene and there is no stigma attached. The first time it happened, i panicked, but a wise friend taught me a few great tips.
First of all, rather than throwing stuff away, stick things like hair accessories and stuffed animals in the freezer for 24 hours. This will kill the eggs as well as the live bugs. What won't fit in the freezer can go in a plastic bag for 10 days.
Secondly, a great method for detecting and removing the live lice is to put conditioner on your child's hair for 5 minutes. This paralyzes the bugs. Then you can use a lice comb to go through your child's hair. Rub the comb on a paper towel and the lice will be visible. Then, you can rinse out the conditioner and put vinegar on your child's hair for 30 minutes to kill anything you might have missed. Be sure to put a shower cap over their head while using the vinegar. The fumes suffocate the lice.
Thirdly, if you are desperate, use hair dye on your child's hair. it changes the structure of the hair and the lice eggs can't adhere to it. Much better than using pesticides.
Hope this helps!
www.exploreandexpress-sheila.blogspot.com
One more thing - you have to repeat the treatment after 10 days, because any eggs that might have been missed will hatch then.
Oh my Rebekah...I am so sorry that you had such a hard time getting rid of the lice. Great post, very informative and touching. So glad that those little critters are out of your life. Now, to keep them away for good! BTW, you're a great mom...nothing to worry about there.
Wow it sounds like quite a battle. I haven't experienced this particular mothering rite of passage and hope to escape it. I must say that it sounds like you did the best you could do and that you are infact a wonderful mother, though I can relate to that crappy feeling because I am super tired after dealing with _______ issue! BTW thanks for featuring my post!!
Unfortunately, my only daughter had a terrible case of lice for a couple of months - yes! We would get rid of them, just to find new ones a couple of weeks later... this went on probably from Nov-early January when after wasting lots of water, buying several different kinds of lice killing shampoos and soaps, using not only olive oil but other kinds of oils and tons of hrs of combing, in desperation I went to a drug store and inquired if there was any medication she could take and guess what?: There is!!! She took a two pill treatment - 1 pill per week, and so far she has been lice free! Thank God as I thought I was going to go crazy and was ready to shave her head much to her dismay!
It was a horrible experience for us and I hope not too many people have to go through such ordeal.
Oh goodness! That does NOT sound like a fun week at all! But it sounds like you handled it like a trooper. Did your daughter like her new haircut? :) I hope so!
@Sheila Thanks for sharing your tips! Next time (hopefully there is not a next time), I might just try the vinegar. I had heard it was good at killing lice but I sort of panicked and bought the shampoo. Come to find out the shampoo wasn't very successful. I found combing worked the best.
@Jen Farr Well, I might have been just adequate the past few weeks but without needing to deal with the lice, I am usually pretty great. =)
@Angela@mamarosemary.com I hope the issue you are dealing with gets easier for you. Isn't it so hard as a mother as it is then when you have the added stress of something else added, it just is too much sometimes. =)
@S. Oh my goodness, how awful for you and your daughter! I think some lice are resistant to the shampoos. My daughter had live mature lice in her hair immediately after I washed it with the shampoo.
Are you in the U.S.? My husband is a pharmacist and didn't mention there being a pill to use. I will have to ask him about it.
Thanks for the feature of my post on Post-partum. I've noticed in the blogs I follow that a lot of other people have been sharing their post-partum stories this week. I hope we create a little wave that can travel to moms currently struggling. The hardest part is to get out of your head long enough to get help!
Rebekah, I am so sorry you had go go through this! It's a pain, for sure. Great tips I hope I'll never have to use. :-)
Tis the season for lice! We had a scare here recently, too. Never found any live bugs, but we treated preventatively and are now using lavender detangling spray (Fairy Tales, it's on Amazon) to repel them.
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