get rid of lice

Today is day 14, and we’re louse-free. This weekend, we’ll restore all the original bedding back on the beds.

Yay!

We ended up with two combs – one that is a sort of standard pet store kind with round tines, and a special lice comb with square tines. The square tined one is much more effective (“clinically proven”, but also according to our experience) at either pulling the lice off of the hair, or shredding it as it goes through the hair. But the tines are so close together, there’s no way it can go through the hair until you use the round tined one first to separate and smooth out the strands.

We just had the round tined one first, so we spent about two hours per person Saturday combing and then having to either pull off by hand or snip off any strand with a nit on it, as others have described. After purchasing the square tined one Sunday AM, I could do Rose’s head in a half hour, and get rid of every visible nit. So the square-tined one is pretty valuable in terms of time and thoroughness.

Meanwhile, I’m doing fresh pillowcases all around nightly. All the bedding and even things like sofa pillows have been either bagged or laundered. My enthusiasm in boiling hair implements and do-dads means I ruined a couple of things, but no huge loss.

I am praying that this is going to be enough, and they will be gone, gone, GONE!

I was in denial for a long time. I thought Emma’s head was itching because she has sensitive skin and she dyes her hair various colors with cheap hair dyes that she buys with her allowance. Rose was complaining about her head itching, but I couldn’t see anything. It sounds selfish and stupid, but I didn’t take it seriously until my head started itching.

Our entire house is infested with lice. My husband, with his buzz cut, seems to be OK for now.

I have outlined an 11 part plan on a big piece of butcher paper and hung it up in the front hall and secured family cooperation.

The bicycle ride for the day has been truncated into a 25 mile tootle, so the initial steps can be completed, today, which are:

1. Everyone washes her hair with insecticide shampoo.
2. All hair implements, ribbons, bands, etc (we have lots of these with three women with long hair) will be plunged into a large pot of boiling water
3. The beds are all stripped of all bedding. Our PJs, pillows, sheets, pillowcases, and any bedding that can be washed on hot, are washed on hot. The remaining bedding is bagged and sealed.
4. The bedrooms are thoroughly vacuumed
5. Insecticide is sprayed on every unwashable surface that has contact with our heads (bike helmet, car head rests, etc.)
6. Everyone’s head is combed out for nits.
7. Any remaining unboilable, unsprayable, small, non-essential items that may come in contact with heads will be bagged (such as headphones)

1. All heads will be combed out for nits nightly
2. Every pillowcase washed on hot nightly. If I need to buy more pillowcases, so be it.

again. The school really has an infestation. Am getting so sick of this….

Yeesh, it just never ends. We’re all covered in olive oil right now.