My granddaughters have lice and I'm a bit freaked out

[Sugarcoated]

It's the second time in a couple weeks. The first time, they'd been here overnight a maybe twice and I cleaned everything furiously. I had a nurse check my hair, she found nothing. My daughter said she was diligent and thorough and got them all, cleaned everything in her apt., etc. So, I'm feeling movement on my head the past few days and don't know if it's my imagination. Now, school found them in both girls hair again. Do I treat our hair (husband, teen son, me), then clean everything? The spare bedroom, for example, that they just slept in, after stripping the bed, if I shut the door and leave it will the lice and eggs die out? I'm going to vacuum everything everywhere, but I still won't put my head on anything expect a clean pillow case. Am I over thinking this?

[Sugarcoated]

1. I also want to add

that I've read all kinds of conflicting information on the net . . . someone here on on an old DU post said you have to put stuffed animals and pillows in the freezer to kill them and the eggs, while I've read most places it's supposed to be heat. Wash in hot water then hot drier, yet another place said put in the drier for a half hour before washing.

[Maine-ah]

23. went through this last year.

For stuffed animals run them in the dryer on high for 30 minutes then place them all in plastic garbage bags for a few days. Same for pillows. All bedding must be washed - and anything else that is fabric and washable must be washed and run through dryer at high heat. Couch cushions, chair cushions - vacuum everything.

For the OP - it's not unusual for the lice to come back after a short period - sometimes it takes two treatments to get rid of them all.

[trof]

2. My daughter and family had them.

Head lice know no 'income/social status' boundaries.
Son-in-law is a $300,000+ attorney.
The kids get them at school.
She found a professional 'head lice hunter'.
Who knew that was a 'profession'?

[hedgehog]

4. and they prefer clean hair!

[hedgehog]

3. Get yourself a comb and have someone look you over.

It's not the end of the world and you don't have to sanitize everything. My daughter brought them home and gave them to me years ago. It was fun because she had very long, very curly hair the same shade as the nits! (sandy blonde) I combed her hair and shampooed it, washed my own very long hair with the shampoo, combed it out, washed the bedding, vacuumed the couch and that was about it. The real pain was getting called at work 20 miles away to come pick up my daughter!

[Sugarcoated]

6. I'm thinking of inviting them to stay here for a while so my daughter

maybe can avoid all the work involved in cleaning her place, again, and treat the granddaughters here. I think they may have been reinfested due to her overlooking something in her apartment. It's small, cluttered and she's a single mom who is overworked and to top it off, she's got a stomach bug and still went to work today because she needs the money.

[Chan790]

22. School is a more-likely source.

One kid gets them, then they go around and around and around like a carousel...often enough with multiple infestations because there is always that one parent in the grade-school-parent clade who doesn't view it as a problem but a rite of passage that will die out eventually and refuses to treat their kid who becomes the re-infestation vector. Alternately, we have kids like my brother's grade-school best friend Topher who could only be coerced into a bathtub with great difficulty...they used to have to sneak up on him, pour dishwater over his head and garden-hose him off while he screamed like a bain sidhe. You'd have thought he was melting or they were beating him for all the caterwauling.

I remember being in 4th grade and the county health board finally contacting Toph's mother and begging her to let them at their own cost treat her son who was the hub of a cyclical infestation that went on for 2 months. She was like "Good luck with that." So he got pulled out of class and they washed his mullet-head...then they gave that Pigpen-like bastard ice cream. (He was a filthy kid. As I said, refused to bathe. Smelled like gym socks...he had the misfortune further of being the early bloomer who went through puberty at 10.)

[mokawanis]

5. it can become a nightmare that goes on and on

Not trying sound all gloomy here, but years ago when my wife and I were raising three kids we had to deal with head lice repeatedly and spent what was then a small fortune to us, around $500 during one school-year.

I wish I could recall all the details and offer sound advice, but it was a long time ago. My wife just said she thinks leaving that bedroom unoccupied for 2 weeks will kill them all, the same as putting pillows and other items into tied-off bags for 2 weeks. She also said mayonnaise killed the lice better than all the treatments we bought.

I hope things get better for you.

[rmax]

7. Cheap store brand extra virgin olive oil and dishwashing liquid.

We went through this a long time ago. The RID and other such things did nothing. Nitpicking did nothing. Olive oil did the trick.

Every two days, go through the same ritual. Coat everyone's hair (I mean everyone in the house) in extra virgin olive oil. It drowns the nits. Sleep on a towl over a pillow. The next morning, shower with regular (as in inexpensive) dishwashing liquid for shampoo. It's the only thing that will cut the olive oil. Wash all of the towels and pillow cases.

Rinse and repeat two days later. Do that for at least two weeks and the buggers will be gone. Don't bother wasting money on the insecticides. The don't work. We spent three months trying the insecticides and still had to go pick up the kids at school.

The other thing to remember is that it has nothing to do with hygene, household conditions, or anything else. Just hugging someone will likely infect a kid. It is often considered a stigma, but it shouldn't be. There's no social-economic boundary for parasites.

Just hug her, tell her she's a good kid and try the olive oil.

[Raven]

9. Welcome to DU. Great advice! :-)

[rmax]

10. Trust me. It works. Simple, cheap, and effective. What more could you want?

[elleng]

12. GEE, wish I'd known this 20? years ago!

Welcome!

[rmax]

13. It's a simple and ancient solution. Any heavy oil will do.

[HipChick]

20. Castor Oil works well...also any shampoo with Tea Tree Oil used on reg basis

[Arugula Latte]

18. Mayonnaise works, too.

[Demoiselle]

8. Has the school checked out all the other kids and its premises?

My kids brought lice home from school.

[Sugarcoated]

16. All I know is she told the school and the aftercare program they go to after school.

It was the aftercare that found them. I found out my neighbor's kids had lice about a month ago and their mom not only didn't tell us, but was pushing for our girls to go over and play with her kids. I also occasionally watch this neighbor's kids to help her out, and it would've been nice to have been told. Needless to say, I'm not watching her kids anymore.

[elleng]

11. My older daughter had them for about a year, 3d grade,

long hair, and I repeatedly 'treated' them until finally they disappeared. None of us, younger sister and 2 parents, + close neighborhood friends, got them.

DON'T worry, please.

[hedgehog]

14. It was many years after I read this series

that I realized why Mamma washed all the girls hair with kerosene!

[Sugarcoated]

15. When I was a little girl my Hungarian gramma would massage our heads to relax us to sleep

and click her nails together against our scalp and say, 'Got the buggy'. I never actually had any buggies, but t was incredibly soothing . . . I didn't understand what she was doing at that age but I guess back on the farm in Austria-Hungry old country that's what they did.

[kath]

19. Ooh, I loved those books when I was young.

Don't remember the kerosene shampoos though.

[winter is coming]

17. I'd comb everyone who might have gotten lice just to be sure,

but if you haven't shared pillows, brushes, hats, etc., you probably don't have lice. I know it's a total pain and kind of icky, but you will get past this. My daughter brought home lice once and gave it to us. (She used to snuggle between us in the mornings for a snooze cycle or two and we were noticeably more infested on the sides of our heads closest to her.) A couple of her favorite stuffies got the heat treatment in the dryer, but a lot of things we just put in plastic bags for a month. Other than that, I vacuumed a little and washing the bedding/towels in addition to treating us.

[hedgehog]

24. Keep in mind - it's not measles, mumps, whooping cough,

scarlet fever or smallpox, it's just lice!

[2theleft]

25. I also recommend the mayo

lice came to visit our house two years ago. I hated the thought of putting insecticide on the kids heads...google, google, more google...

Bought tubs of cheap mayo. Slathered them up, wrapped in saran wrap, made them leave it like for an hour or so. Then washed with dish soap, then shampooed and conditioned, used one of those combs. One treatment, on top of the cleaning of everything worked for us. Granted, they did not have them bad - only really saw one nit in the whole process, I think they came off with the mayo goop.

[benld74]

26. The NEW fix is Regular Listerine!!!!!

[Neoma]

27. Lice loves clean hair. Get dirty.

[reflection]

28. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Two girls, both have had it at some point, along with my wife. I don't know how I keep escaping it but I do. Some of the remedies you have heard work well. The mayonnaise works particularly well, as does vaseline. But yes, you should vacuum everything and roll down to the coin-op laundromat armed with a few rolls of quarters. Get the spray and apply liberally (no pun intended) to everything you can't haul away to be washed. Continue to spray the furniture and wash their hair with Rid even when you think it's over. Those eggs can be tenacious.

It is a real pain, but when you are done, your stuff will be clean, everyone will be happy, and they'll have a funny story to tell their kids. Good luck.

[AnneD]

29. I am a school urse with 20+ years experience....

feel free to pm me.

[Sugarcoated]

30. Thanks for all the responses

I appreciate it. I cleaned, vacuumed, treated with Licefreee, change the sheets every 2 days, brushes through the dishwasher, etc. My daughter and granddaughters are here at my house for 2 weeks so the little effers can just die at her apartment. Hopefully we got this!