Head Lice

[Calluna]

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. 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