Head Lice

Lindsay has brought some 'friends' home from school today and I wanted to know do you have to keep them home from school until they are gone? I have gotten DH to bring some treatment stuff home, but wasn't sure about the school bit. I figure I should tell the school though.

I think each school has varied policies. Our school says you do have to notify them and then keep them home until the lice have gone.

Thanks for that Christine. I looked in the info pack the school gave me when he enrolled, but it says nothing about head lice.

I would call the school anyway. Because if all the kids aren't treated over a weekend and then with the following up weekly treatment you will find that you can't get rid of them. As the kids keep infecting each other. It's tuff once you have them in a class room. We haven't managed it yet!!!!

btw just a hint if you still have them... I've had parents come into the vet clinic & buy frontline spray for it...apparently it works wonders LOL Its obviously not registered for it.

frontline spray?????

Sheree - Frontline spray is a flea treatment for cats and dogs.

LOL Christy. I can imagine fronting up at the vet's and asking "can I please have some frontline spray? it's for my 5 year old son" I called a mum of a girl in his class and she said she was told to spray tea-tree oil on the hair once a week to keep them away.

Thats exactly it Sherie!! & you know when there's an outbreak because all the mums come in after school with kids in the same uniform LOL

Oooer will have to remember that trick Christy !!

Love

I have treated everyone and will wash all the linen and clothes today. I really hope they don't come back.

I ended up buying the zapper comb (Robicomb) because maddy has really long hair & I was getting her to rinse her hair /wash it in her bath & she was doing it every second night.. Then notes are constantly coming home about a lice outbreak, so I went to Chemist there's no yucky toxins in it & I can use it on everyone in the family... She has had them once now & it zaps them, then every second or third night before bed I comb through her hair so if a egg was present it's would now be dead! It has lareday saved me heaps on buying products for the hair! It's battery operated & I think it is the bestr purchase since she started school!
The other thing is conditioner, in the mornings I rub conditioner on my hands & work it through her hair & then tie it up in tight plaits! Apparently the lice cant stick to conditioner!???
Good Luck, coz Lice are so annoying!!!!

Cait got them earlier this year, eggs at least - I had no idea they were so tiny. Like breadcrumbs. I bought a metal comb and the prongs had little bits coming off them for a finer comb. And a Kinda mum put me on to 1000% natural headlice blitzer from essential health which is all natural. There is also a spray which is eucalyptus and tea tree based to spray on dry hair to ward them off.

Our council says you just have to notify the pre school and treat the child, you don't have to keep them away.

I have had years of de nitting on a regular basis and have think have tried just about everything (except kero, last resort, bit scary) My 12 yr old has really thick long dark hair (NIT heaven!) Just had awesome results with professional remover purchased from hairdressing supplier (NORRIS) not sure if public can go there may need to buy through hairdresser. De Lorenzo and YES it worked. Good Luck.

I have kept him home and notified the school, which was a good thing because they do have the policy of keeping them home. The people who live next door to us have a boy on the bus 1yr older than Lindsay and they sit together, so I rang her this morning and she said "Oh yeah, XXX had them 2 weeks ago" It made me a little bit cranky that here I was doing the right thing so she could check her kids and she didn't tell me 2 weeks ago to check mine. AARGH!!! And I really didn't expect that sort of thing from her either. She didn't even keep her child home.

Most schools say start treatment and once you have started treating them they can attend. I am the queen of denitting, Joran had them constantly for 6 months thanks to the child she sat next to everyday never being treated. he was crawiling with them. I would treat her Saturday go through her hair on sunday and make sure they were all gone and by the end of the week they were back. I have used almost everything on the market, and the chemicals were so harsh on her hair, it almost wrecked it. I now use white conditioner. This doesn't kill them, it stops tem from being able to mov as it is gluggy and so they can't run and you can comb them out and squash them. I used to gothrough every strand on Sunday making sure there wasn't any eggs left. Good luck with getting rid of them and hope they stay away
cheers michelle

I had to re-do his hair tonight because I must of missed a few eggs and now they have hatched. I was talking to his teacher and she said that when he went to school again, the other kids asked him where had he been and he told them "I was at home - I wasn't sick but I had nits!". She said it was just hillarious the way he said it.

I pity the little boy that sat next to Jordan, imagine how itchy he must of felt, not to mention the other problems that arise from prolonged infestation of lice.

that is funny SHerie, when I was teaching I found it better to be open wth the kids about it. I was teaching a gr 1 and 2 class and 1 girl had them all the time. It used to be that if we found a child with them they were sent home and not able to return until tratment had begun, if it continued to happen then they had to get council approval to return to school. The government changed it do to the privacy act, that sending a child home due to nits iolated their privacy, so schools hands ae tied. Arron went to the school after IU treated poor Jordan for the 6 months straight and went roight off. The teacher moved her and she didn't get them again, but prob the child who she was swapped with had them. Arron said to the office thatthey needed to do something and they said the mother didn't treat the child , said she didn't know what to do, and Arron said well tell her!!! I had a mother of a child in my grade ask me about them and I showed her how to check for them and explained what she was looking for. Her daughter had goldilocks hair so it would have been an awful job for her.

My class and i talked about nits as bugs that bite your head and said discussed how anybody can get them in their hair, so there was no stigma. it is only bad when you make it seem badlol My mum used to carry on and say don't tell anyone Jordan and I would tell her that was stupid.
cheers michelle

kero, does work with olive oil but the nits must put gas masks on as sometimes it coesnt get them all my daughter brings them home sometimes
sarahxxx

Every school is different and I am pretty sure that now all schools cant send kids home as it is 'discriminatory' towards the child.

But in my opinion it is in the best interest of your child and the others to keep at home until its gone. If they go to school it just spreads it and then once your child has gotten rid of it they might contract it again from another child and the cuycle just goes on and on!

Mitch4now- I did the same thing with my kindy class this week as nits is going around! The kids were quite open about is as I I even explained that when I was little and at school I had nits as well as they can just jump into your hair.

My DS9 gets them all the time and it drives me insane. I use the Nads nit foam and it works great but I wish the parents of the kid he gets them from would fix their kids hair. I only have to leave it on for 1/2 hour and it is done.

I had lice the WHOLE way through primary school, my mother used to treat me every 2 or 3 weeks and I'd always get them back. Only after a visit with my dad, on school holidays (my parents were/are separated), did I get rid of the buggers, went back to my mums and got them again. grr. :wall: Because of my hair (THICK and long) it would literally take 3 or 4 hours to comb through my hair.
After trying basically every product on the market and lots of psychological trauma - from teasing at school to being told that the hair dresser wouldn't cut my hair because of the lice (made me scared and embarrased(sp) to go to the hairdresser for a LONG time) - we finally found a way to keep them away:
- firstly I moved to my fathers house lol and as well as that
- put a few drops of tea tree oil in a spray bottle with some water and spray ALL over the hair and head every couple of days and
- every couple of weeks put a tea tree oil based lice treatment through the hair regardless of whether you find any lice or not.

We found that the treatments with lots of chemicals worked for a little while but were really bad for the hair and the lice get used to the chemicals and they stop working.

Just a few things I have learnt over the many many years:
- Lice HATE tea tree oil as they cant grip the hair, the eggs wont stick and I believe - could be wrong - it is also toxic to them.
- Lice dont jump they swing from the infected to the non-infected persons hair. So contrary to popular belief, you can only get it them you come into contact with the persons hair.
- Lice like clean hair rather than dirty or unwashed hair, so just because a child has lice doesn't mean they are dirty.
- They can hold thier breath for a number of days so "suffocating" them doesnt work.
- You have to THOROUGHLY comb through the hair every strand from scalp to tip, every time you treat the lice as if you miss even one egg or louse they come back within a matter of days.

That's all I can think of for now HTH