Constant reinfestation of hair lice 5.5 yo

Tzutzie

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 4:59 am

So I cut my 5.5 yo hair short before the winter and since then she has constant hair lice.
Before I cut her hair, she had hair lice once after she wore her hair loose in school.
I cleaned it out and that was it for 2 hears.

Now she is constantly reinfested. Her hair is too short to put into a pony tail, not that I want to I love her hair short and loose but it's crazy. I'd gladly pull it back now if I could.

I did the whole Pantene conditioner and baking soda treatment numerous times, washing ALL the linens in the house. And coats/hats. And brushes/combs.
The poor poor kid! She let's me clean her hair like a little angel. But this has got to end!

And it's not like I don't know how to do the Pantene treatment. I've done this over a dozen times between all of my nieces heads that I cleaned over my teenaged years. Lol. I was even offered to be paid to do it for others. Nope. Ewww. (I guess I loved my niecese enough not to be grossed out. Lol)

Sounds like she keeps getting it from a friend in school.

I am currently using a shampoo that's supposed to keep the lice away but it's obviously not working.
What else can I do?
The craziest thing is, her sister can be using the same brush and bathed in the same bath and she only had lice ONCE. And that time the 5.5 yo didn't even have it!!!

What else can I do to make it stop coming back?

watergirl

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 5:04 am

Forget the pantene. You need to kill the nits. Ask your ped for the rx strength wash and use that. Treat the entire family.

A friend of mine it is a professional lice lady and her only guarantee her work is every member in the family is treated. With one family, the husband refused to be treated because it meant being touched by her. The family kept getting re-infested and nobody knew where it was coming from. Of course, they blamed my friend from missing lice and nits. Finally, the husband consented and she found that his beard was completely infested!

amother

Bronze

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 6:35 am

amother wrote:

Did you talk to the school about this? By us they're very strict with lice, if a kid is infested they have to get cleaned professionally and cant come back to school without a note from the lice lady. The entire class gets checked if one girl has lice. Once they even closed down one of the grades for 2 days till everyone was clean. The best hairstyle to prevent lice is s thight bun or braids.

This is the only solution. When I was growing up, my sisters and I constantly had lice because the school did nothing about it. You can clean your daughter day and night, but if she'll be in contact with other kids who are infested she'll keep getting reinfested. BH my girls' schools are really on top of this and I haven't had a problem. We pay a $25 lice checking fee at the beginning of the year and it's worth every penny. Parents of your daughter's school have to get together and demand that they take this seriously. The school needs to hire someone to be in charge and accountable, have monthly or bi-monthly nit checking, and absolutely not allow anyone with nits to come to school. That's the only way. Hatzlacha!

Spaghetti7

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 10:31 am

You need to use the proper lice killing stuff not just pantene. Hedrin Once is great and isn't pesticide-based. I've found Hedrin Protect to be great for general use, much more effective than the teatree shampoos etc. Hedrin protect is a spray you comb through after washing their hair (every three days is sufficient) and it does something which stops lice on the head.

PS. I don't work for Hedrin. It has just worked well for us. And since we started using Hedrin Protect regularly we haven't had another lice infestation.

Tzutzie

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 10:49 am

Thing is, the school checks every month. But that same day I found lice in my kids head. Doesn't seem like they are thorough or too affective. I used to call the teacher every time I found lice in her hair. I doubt she did anything.
When I clean her out she's clean for a few weeks.
I check her hair every day after I clean her out to make sure she is actually clean. Then after a week I go by twice a week.

Like last time, she came home from school scratching her head. And I gave one comb where it was itching and out came a HUGE louse. The biggest I've ever seen and like maybe 7 nits. It almost looked like I interrupted I massive "litter".
It was crazy. I didn't find a single louse after that just a few more nits. She must have caught it that same day from someone in school.

So I combed and combed. Just plain her hair. And then I wet it and blow dried it on the hottest setting she was comfortable on. (My lice stopped as soon as I started blowdrying my hair.)
And she was clean. For about 4 weeks. On motzia shabbos I found 1 big louse. 2 more (tiny ones) yestersay and lots of nits.
I didnt do pantene. I combed her hair for a while yesterday. Till I was comfortable that there is no more lice and nits. I'll comb it another half hour when she comes home.
To make sure I didn't miss any nits.
But in general there is around 4-5 weeks between one case and the there and it takes a nit max 3 weeks to lay eggs from when the nit itself is layed.... so it's a new louse from someone else.

As I said, Noone else has any lice. Even my other kid whose bathed together with her and shares the same brush!

Im going to try giving her b12. I'll ask the ped how much I can give her.

I really think the lice like the taste of her blood/her smell. She does have a little bit of a yeasty nature. Maybe it's that. I'm at my whits end with this.

Tzutzie

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 10:52 am

ShishKabob wrote:

Blow dry her hair every time. Some people say that this is the solution to keeping the lice away. Good luck!

I see we cross posted. I did that last time.
She got it again.
I believe the issue is that she picks it up.
She is definitely clean when I'm done cleaning her out. But it's like the lice are attracted to her.

I did blow dry her hair once but I can't do that on a regular basis. She's 5. Her hair is delicate. Not to be blow dried every other day.

When she will be older, if she still has lice issues then we'll do that. But not before she's for sure 13.

Iymnok

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 12:12 pm

The way we do it here is comb after every shower. Some kids are prone to it, some aren’t. Occasionally comb everyone else. What I found works best is a good strong comb with long teeth. After each stroke on wet, not dripping hair, I wipe it on a cloth diaper. The white absorbent fabric absorbs the water and leaves the bugs and nuts in easy view. I rarely check the hair visually, though that is needed for very fine hair that just slips through the good comb.

Get out a White receiving blanket and comb 2-3 times a week. Just a quick run through. If she’s scratching, be more thorough.

The chemical stuff and other treatments are fine occasionally, but if she keeps getting reinvested then comb, comb, and comb.

amother

Pewter

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 12:29 pm

My mom had lots of girls and controlled the lice issue very well. We had a close neighbor who's children were always infested so here is what she did.:

Once a week (every Wednesday), right after the shower she combed each child hair. Sometimes she took out nothing, sometimes a few lice in different sizes and some nits. But being that she did this every single Wednesday, non of us were ever majorly infested. In fact we were mostly clean. Combing helps damage the nits so even if she never checked by hand, it worked.

My mother never washed the linens or anything else when a child had some lice or nits. Still, we were all mostly clean.

amother

Rose

Mon, Feb 04 2019, 1:40 pm

My almost 5 year old daughter had it recently for almost 3 weeks. Kept on coming back.
A professional for over 30 years said that lice are resistant to the shampoos. Besides that they’re full of chemicals.
We did conditioner, combing thoroughly and also checked under a bright light.

What finally got rid of it was when I spent 2+ hours combing the hair thoroughly. Took each 1/2 inch and combed through up, down, right and left.

The school needs a professional to check or at least send a note home that there was a case in the class and all girls must be checked thoroughly.

amother

Yellow

Tue, Feb 05 2019, 5:27 am

When l went to school my mom used to keep a spray bottle with vinegar right before I went to school. We never got llice. For my own children I use Dr Fischer comb and clean shampoo and conditioner and they have never gotten lice. Shampoo is very mild so I sometimes use just the conditioner that has rosemarie in it.
In Target, I noticed there are so many products that are meant to keep lice away. They are expensive, but preventing them from coming in the first place is worth more than treatment.

watergirl

Tue, Feb 05 2019, 5:38 am

amother wrote:

A lot of what we use is full of chemicals. Why is this an issue? There are chemicals in everything, its not a bad thing. Its a once in a while thing in this case and it gets the job done. While it is true that some strains of lights are resistant to many of the products, it’s not true for all of them. A lot of these “professionals” use these phrases as fear mongering and tactics to get you to pay hundreds on their services.

lovetobemommy

Tue, Feb 05 2019, 6:52 am

Tzutzie wrote:

Definitely look into making her blood taste different, when I was 5 yrs old my sister who was 3 and a half slept together with me in the same bed on the same pillow (my parents had a very small house) she would have a full head of lice almost on a weekly basis and I didn't have any!!! My mother asked the pediatrician how is that possible he told her that the lice simply don't like my blood it's too bitter for them and my mother says that when I was little I really liked fruits and vegetables while my sister had a sweet tooth......
I don't know exactly which vitamin but the B vitamins are really bitter and could be she is a little bit deficient so her blood is more on the sweeter side then other kids.