Protect your head...

[Micer]

Might as well ask for some advice, hubby's family has been dealing with a lice issue that's pretty much spread through their entire family (SiL, MiL, Niece, Nephew, SiL's SO) which is fine, SiL has been dealing with it in her usual haphazard fashion.

But our requests for them not to come to our place pretty much have been ignored and two days ago hubby pretty much found himself completely infested and having to shave his head down to the scalp. I mourn the death of his long black metal-worthy hair. I've lucked out so far for some reason, probably because I've been treating all of them like plague victims, but thought I would ask what do I need to do to protect my own hair?

I know gel and hairspray are two ways to keeping them away from your head, are there any others? Right now we've replaced our pillows, pillowcases, sprayed down the mattress and furniture with the remaining 'Good Nights' spray (it's meant more for bedbugs but it apparently gets mites/lice too) and done the whole RID routine.

I really don't want to go back to a pixie cut, and yet again, as I type this, they're here, even after informing us yesterday that Niece had a new outbreak. Can't. Friggen. Win.

[AnaKhouri]

Um, don't open the door when they come? Might be easier said than done, though, depending on your family dynamic.

I don't have much other advice, I remember having lice as a kid and some kind of special shampoo. Once Khan gets to school age, I'll probably have to deal with it too.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Um, don't open the door when they come? Might be easier said than done, though, depending on your family dynamic.

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I'm with you! I don't even give a damn what kind if family dynamic we're talking about, some idiot brings lice over to my house when they know they're doing it, it will be the last time they'd ever set foot inside my house! That crap is difficult and expensive to get rid of!

[Shpepper]

Add Tea tree oil or Rosemary oil to your shampoo when you wash your hair. They hate it and it keeps them away. We on;y had one outbreak when my kids were little. Then I started adding this to the shampoo and we never had another issue, including the year that my son shared hats with a child who had a nasty case.

[Mishi]

Deep conditioning helps too. Give it a good brush then load your dry hair up with as much cheap conditioner as it can hold and then clingwrap/saran wrap it so that you don't drip and they can't escape. After an hour or so, comb through with a finetooth comb, rinsing the comb in a bowl of warm water after each time so that you don't knock the lice out of the comb back into your hair. Have a needle or other thin implement nearby in case a louse or an egg gets stuck in the comb. Comb through twice or until you can comb your entire head without finding any new ones. Wash out thoroughly. Repeat in 4 days or after your inlaws next visit. The conditioner helps to break down the bond between the egg and your hair, so even if you don't get all of them, there's a good chance that by combing, you've moved it far enough away from the scalp that the eggs are no longer viable. It takes 7-10 days for lice to hatch, so do a check every couple of days until you're sure that they're gone.

This method is also a good way of checking to see if you have headlice and works best for low to medium levels of infestation. The usual headlice treatments burn my scalp and make me really sick. I've found that doing this every day for 2 weeks killed off a bad case while I was in primary school, so it's my preferred method for dealing with it.

[NorthernZel]

I second Mishi's advice. Actually, over here the conditioner/fine-tooth-combing combo is recommended instead of other remedies, when it comes to fighting and/or preventing lice infections amongst pre-schoolers or/and schoolkids.

[Micer]

Thank you guys, I'm going to look for the oil, otherwise probably going to do another pass through with the gel and nit comb for comforts sake, already re-sprayed the couch but it pretty much killed my plans of curling up and watching movies tonight. On that first day of hubby finding his, he checked mine and only came across one tiny one and nothing else, so I'm still paranoid that I have them too.

And yes, very much easier said than done, they don't quite get the reason why we purposely moved half an hour away from them. But MiL generally shows up whenever she pleases to either make use of the fact that we have internet/cable here, which usually means niece is with her (since we always have snacks/games/and are more than happy to play and talk with her) so even saying 'Please don't come over, we're having friends over for Warhammer tonight' will be met with her appearing on our doorstep and being so surprised at the four extra people in our home.

I know she means well, my MiL, but she doesn't quite get the whole 'don't come here if you're infested or if Niece is still infested' and still insists that she has no idea how she got them (Niece sleeps in same bed as her) That they're like fleas, that they can hop/fly around and mysteriously land on people and that the ones she has are in no relation to the ones Niece has, hers she insists came from simply entering the Department of Health.

Gave up within the first week of the infestation on offering advice that everything and everyone in that house needs to be bagged/cleaned/checked/rechecked - because obviously I know nothing, even after working five years in daycare and having to follow the same cleaning procedures on outbreaks.

[fireheart]

This is what I did regularly. (Sort of changed after I coloured it)

-Used a fine-tooth nit comb in the shower every time and got as many of the little buggers out as possible.
-Used tea-tree oil or a headlice solution that had tea-tree oil in it. (stuff like Moov if you're in Australia worked wonders for me) Ran that through and then combed it out afterwards.

Usually the latter i.e. Moov, are the better products to use, because they don't sting so much and while your hair does smell for a few days, it doesn't smell so chemicall-y. If you're going to get a nit comb, DON'T GET THE PLASTIC ONES. The metal ones may hurt, but they're designed to be used in wet hair, not dry hair.

Alternately, a Robi-comb may do the trick for detection-it's a comb that makes a whining noise but it'll stop whenever it comes into contact with a louse. Depending on which mode you set it to, you can either detect it or kill it (it won't zap YOU btw)

[trailerparkmedic]

Olive oil also works well with the method Mishi described. And yes, metal lice combs are a MUST. The plastic ones aren't worth the time you'll waste with them.

[Cazzi]

I also used the conditioner & tea tree method, but every other day for 2 weeks as advised by our children's health person. Reason being, to catch the new hatchlings before they get a chance to get big enough to lay eggs.

May or may not be applicable but we kept wondering why my daughter kept getting re-infested.. She has long hair & the back of her neck is quite hairy almost down to her shoulders... the combing wasn't getting them properly down there, so I shaved the back of her neck until we were sure they were gone.

Will have to excuse me now, reading this thread has made me itch!

[Der Cute]

Uh, ok. Lice. I'll take lice over fleas.

I've heard of the mayo in hair treatment, similar to the PP's conditioner/plastic wrap idea. And bleach. Oh yes bleach on the bedding, pillows all that stuff.

But how the freckles does MIL get IN? If it's YOUR house it's NOT HER HOUSE. I know that's black and white. That's how you draw the boundary for it. (physical for you to remind yourself).

Ok. So you've got invisible/virtual border around the house (think electric green zappy). So, how does she get in? Does she have a key to the house? Does she have the idea of "permanent invites" ? Carte Blanche Walk In Door? Knock once and come in at dinner time?

You and DH need to sit down YESTERDAY and figure out WTF is going on. This visitation stuff has consequences that are VISIBLE. This will make it much easier for DH to see : Mommy visits, she makes mess, DW has to help clean it. ..Oh! Light bulb! This mess we have right now (lice) is PITA. Maybe Mommy can't come over ! (duh).
You two draw up acceptable visits. (Call 3hr before visit and have authorization to come over); Set up visit/dinners/get togethers at least a week before the party. Bring unexpected guests? Uh, No. Or, Depends.

And he's going to have to be the Bad Guy. He is the bridge between you and his family. He has to stand up and say, "Mom. You brought Kiddo over, and now we all have lice. you cannot come over this week, we are cleaning this mess up. No. You cannot come over this week. No. No, I'm sorry, this week will not work (notice it's dead horse beating here). No, Mom, this week is not good. Oh, you think next week. Ok. ONLY IF YOU DONT BRING LICEKID. Oh, you want to bring LiceKid next week? No, that's not going to work."

So, she comes over next week and has LiceKid. Turn her away at the door. "Sorry, we were expecting just you. We've only made provisions/have space/have sanity for one guest. Come over next week, and let us know before hand kthxbye"

There is nothing wrong with telling another adult NO. It's hard to do it. But you can.

My dad still thinks that yelling at me over the phone and telling me what to do -I'm 36, thank you, is still acceptable. He did that one week, recently. I said, " Why are you yelling?"
He said , "I'm mad blah lakfljdjf whatever I'm not happy and I told you what to do blahdlkajsdlkjd"
I then said, "Until you can stop yelling and speak to me calmly, I'll call you later" CLICK.
Called him 2 weeks later and he didn't yell.

Your MIL might not like being handed a set of boundaries, but it's either boundaries or lose sanity. Your call.

[Seshat]

Heck, another option is do a lice inspection at the door.

Then if they have lice, either turn them away - or do a lice treatment on them both. Right then and there.

[Micer]

Uh, ok. Lice. I'll take lice over fleas.

And I'll take fleas over lice, hurray all tile floors and no carpeting.

I've heard of the mayo in hair treatment, similar to the PP's conditioner/plastic wrap idea. And bleach. Oh yes bleach on the bedding, pillows all that stuff.

We just opted to replace the pillows and bag the bedding for a later wash/nuke, was a good enough reason to replace the pillows anyhow, kept putting it off.

But how the freckles does MIL get IN? If it's YOUR house it's NOT HER HOUSE. I know that's black and white. That's how you draw the boundary for it. (physical for you to remind yourself).

It used to be that she would call first and see if either of us are home before coming over, but lately, it's been this whole show up on our doorstep with the excuse that she needs to use our computer for X,Y,Z reason(which is a valid reason, she's stuck having to make tons of lab appointments while they try to figure out why her immune system is attacking itself, it's like lupus, but it's a genetic based thing that got triggered) or to get out of the house because SiL or SiL's SO are having a screaming match and looking to drag her into it. Or because I think in a strange way she's making an attempt to visit and be there more because of me having a grandchild for her on the way... which, I don't mind, just I wish she would do it when I know she's lice free.

Least when she called I could say that I was out running errands if I didn't want her over, but pretty much now it's -knock knock knock- look who is here.

Pretty much in a month the SiL issue will be fixed, that's when she's moving out with the kids and getting a place of her own, everyone will be away from everyone else, so less coming over to avoid fights, and less times of having the niece along in tow with MiL.

But yes, it is very much my home is your home that hubby puts out to his family. And saying no to them... is, it's asking for a fight. All of them like dramatics and right now I'm more focused on staying out of any stress until this baby is born (27 weeks now) instead of saying NO followed by playing the game of 'guess what they're saying about me in spanish' that usually follows, even if it's hubby that says it, it turns into me being the one that got him to say it.

All in all we're both too nice and it's biting us on the butts.

[AccountingDrone]

My mom tried to essentially bully her way into my house once - they came down to Portsmouth to visit and I told them that it was a bad time [I was studying for finals] and they showed up at the door at about breakfast time. I answered the door, saw it was mom and dad, closed the door, went and grabbed my bail out bag [clothing, toiletries, money and stuff I would need in emergency, it was prepped for hurricane season] walked out to my car, got in and drove off. I checked into a motel near ODU and stayed there. I let my exhusband deal with them.

I don't deal with passive aggressive crap. If I say not to come over, I am not going to bother dealing with you if you come over and figure that just because you are <whatever> I have to deal with you. If I am trying to study for finals, I don't have time to socialize, I *need* to do the task at hand. I have been known to sit at my desk, in full view of the window that looks out onto the driveway and totally ignore anybody banging on my front door. I can sit next to a phone ringing off its hook, totally ignoring it. Crap, I worked in a machine shop for years, I can ignore annoying sounds til the cows come home.

I am polite enough to call ahead and make sure I am welcome, I even tend to bring nummy food along [I bake desserts to deal with stress] but I will not willingly go where I am not sure I am welcome.

[Mikkel]

We just opted to replace the pillows and bag the bedding for a later wash/nuke, was a good enough reason to replace the pillows anyhow, kept putting it off.

Put whatever you want to keep in the freezer for twenty four hours. That will kill the little pests.