I realise I got quiet on the blog. Let me tell you what’s been going on. Remember at the beginning of August when I was dreading head lice? (read about it here if you really want to!). Well, it finally caught up to us.
Ava has been scratching her head for a few weeks. I kept checking her head for lice knowing that we had been exposed to it but I didn’t find anything. Until we went to the park Wednesday morning and she hopped out of the car. What are those white things on the crown of your head? Oh no! It was undeniable and I even caught/killed two adults with my fingers – eewwwwww!!!
Immediate trip to the drug store. Hysterical phone calls to my husband and mother. Hubby got home asap (despite a hard work deadline but this took priority!). Did the kids heads. Deloused little man (3 years old) on the front porch and did a little of little lass’s head (5 years old). After an hour we had only done a little of the crown and a bit of the back. She does not sit still but she did fairly well for her. I asked a neighbour who is a hairdresser to check me out. Yep, I had a few. She gave me a card to an awesome service called the “Lice Squad”. I almost wept with relief that there was professional help.
Since I had done the treatment on the kids they suggested I wait 48 hours until they came. She advised I saturate my head in conditioner and let it sit with a shower cap or plastic bag on it for one hour. This will suffocate the live bugs but will not kill the nits. I left it to soak for two hours just to be sure! I made all four of us do it on the Thursday also. The thought of live bugs crawling on our heads was too much for me to take in. There was a lot of laundering and vacuuming to contain things. Then on Friday, “the lice lady” came.
I like that the Squad uses a non-pesticide enzyme to the conditioning treatment I mentioned above. They also have a FANTASTIC nit-removing comb. The ones you get at the drugstore are pretty well worthless. We ended up using our finger nails on the ones in our first attempt. Yuck!
So, after 4 hours of treating and nit picking (now I know where that saying comes from a little too well!) we are lice-free. The treatment is to be repeated on day 5, 10 and 15 after the first treatment. I’m confident that the subsequent ones will take far less since I’ll be doing it on my own. On those days I am to do a full house-cleaning (laundering, vacuuming, quarantining for 48 hours) to ensure any live bugs that might have escaped the head get caught.
What an ordeal this has all been. If you don’t want the service you can purchase the enzyme and nit picker comb on their own. Here is a link to the Lice Squad’s website.
I was not compensated or asked to write about this company but since I had such relief in finding it I thought I’d share that such services are available for those of us who feel completely overwhelmed with lice.
