UNwanted Visitors

I apologize now, this post will make you itch. 

Feel free to skip over it if you want. 

Tim had a birthday this month and we went on a fun lunch date together that day. It was a rainy rainy day and the week had been busy and just not going well. The lunch date was a nice break from the craziness the week had held so far. 

Scooter had been complaining of an itchy scalp but Scooter has a TON of hair and I assumed it was due to changing shampoos or not rinsing his shampoo out well. He likes to shower every single morning and he likes his hair to be really clean, feel smooth and smell a certain way. I catch myself wanting to laugh at this but then realize I created this hair care monster.  

A few days went by and he was still complaining of his scalp itching. I would check it every day for lice but never saw anything. The mistake was... I was checking when his THICK hair was wet. 

Fast forward to Tim's birthday..... We were all chilling in the living room trying to focus on the special day a midst our crazy week. I won't lie, Tim and I were counting down the minutes to bedtime. We were ready to crash from exhaustion. Bedtime came and we told the kids to get ready and get in bed. Scooter complained to me one more time about his scalp itching but this time he said it felt sore and bruised. Yeah.... that's not dry scalp. I took him in the bathroom with dry hair and checked his hair. Sure enough..... he had lice! I panicked!! I have never never dealt with lice or even seen it. I knew I had to keep all the kids up (goodbye early bedtime), treat every single one of us, strip the house of every single thing that could even possibly come close to our heads, vacuum the house and clean clean clean! I headed out at 9:00pm to get rid lice kits and the household spray to spray our house down with. Tim stayed home and started stripping the house of nearly everything. 

This stuff is NOT cheap!!! Each one of us needed a kit (well Tim and Rascal were able to share one since Tim has very little hair and Rascal's is short and not as thick as Scooter's). We ended up going through 4 kits and 10 cans of the household spray. I also picked up new pillows for all of us too. 

We sprayed ALL items that couldn't be washed (baby dolls, stuffed animals, throw pillows etc...) and then placed them in big black trash bags to sit sealed up for two weeks. This gives us time for the bugs to die and if there were any eggs, they could hatch and have time to die also. We haven't gotten the stuff out of the bags yet but there is a GOOD chance I will just throw a lot of it away and buy new stuff. We also sprayed every mattress in the house, all the furniture and some of the carpet in the living room and boys' room. 

Over the next week I rewashed every single piece of clothing in our house, every single towel, all the sheets, blankets and comforters, every rug, and every jacket in our coat closet. I may have went overboard with my cleaning (is there a such thing??) but I was paranoid! 

Thankfully, no one else had any signs of lice. We all were treated (even Tim's beard) but that was just out of precaution. It took two LONG painful (for Scooter) rid treatments and then an hour long session of mayo in his hair while sitting in the sun, to get all the lice out of his hair.  

Bless his heart, his scalp was sore before we figured this out but then the treatments and washes really made his scalp so sore and tender. I felt so bad for him. I told him we could shave his head but he did not want to do that. I got big brownie points from him for getting it all out without having to shave his head. 

For the next few days we checked his hair at least once a day . 

Baby A and I wore our hair up off our shoulders as a precaution. 

She has really gotten into letting me do her hair! 

For church we tried to dress up a ponytail as much as we could. 

I LOVED how her hair turned out. 

two french braids on each side and a messy top knot to get it all up off her neck. 

For mine, I can't really tell you what I did. Just bobby pinned some up and put the rest in a ponytail holder. 

I write about this not to make you all itch but for two reasons 1) if it happens to us again, I am coming back to this post to see what I did to get rid of it and 2) if it happens to any one else, they have a place to look and see what works to get rid of it. 

I feel like there should be a support group for anyone who has ever had to deal with lice. It is not for the weak that is for sure. I was paranoid for more than a week and have never cleaned so much in my entire life. It's HARD and we only had one person have it in our house. I can't imagine if several of us had it. 

A few tips: 

*Learn from my mistake.... do NOT check for lice in wet hair. 

*Lice tend to hide out in the nape of the neck or behind the ears but Scooter had his worst in the crown of his head so check ALL OVER extremely well. 

* Lice like CLEAN hair. If some one in your house has lice and you are lice free, do NOT wash your hair if at all possible. Put as much hair product in your hair as you can and pull your hair up. 

* Tea Tree Oil, or shampoos with Tea Tree Oil in them, help repel lice. 

* EVERYONE in the house must be treated whether they have lice or not. 

*This is what the kit I bought comes with: step 1) a lice killing shampoo- this is what everyone was treated with. You put it on dry hair and let it sit for the recommended time (10 minutes I think). Once the 10 minutes are up you lather it up and rinse that off really well.  Step 2)Louse and egg removing gel - put this gel on the damp hair of the effected person (if there was no lice spotted, this doesn't have to be done on that person. Only the lice killing shampoo). Use the fine comb included in the kit to remove all the eggs and dead bugs. Once you think you have them all, rinse the hair really well and then wash the hair. After it's been washed, dry the hair and check EXTREMELY well for more bugs or eggs. If you spot more eggs or dead bugs repeat the gel step (step 2) until you don't find any more dead bugs or eggs. My kits also included a can of the household spray but trust me you will want about 1 can for every mattress plus additional cans for furniture and rugs that can't be put in the wash. (these kits run about $20 each and the cans of spray run about $6-8 each..... it is NOT cheap)

* Even though the bugs and eggs are dead they don't just wash right out of the hair. You will have to continue the gel step until you see no eggs in the hair when it's dry. There is no way of knowing for sure if the eggs left in the hair are really dead. Lice are becoming resistant to the over the counter products. Make sure you get ALL the eggs. You don't want to go through all this trouble only to have missed one, it hatch and have to go through it all again in a week. (remember it's not cheap) 

*Lice are species specific so if you have a dog or cat, chances are they will not get it. There is a dog lice and then a different kind humans get. You may want to call your vet to make sure but we were fine even with a long haired dog. 

* The bugs (or louse) have to have a human host to live. If they jump to a pillow (or other surface), they can live for about 24 hours. A female louse lays 3-5 eggs a DAY(!!!) and the eggs hatch in 7-10 days. So you are not 100% in the clear for at least 10 days after you have spotted the lice. 

* Vaseline, Coconut oil or mayonnaise works wonders to help get rid of the eggs and bugs once they are dead. I found this very VERY helpful. I guess it was the oiliness of the mayo but it helped the rest of the eggs and dead bugs slide off the hair shafts. They do not come off when they are still alive and they aren't easy to get off when they are dead. I had to pinch each egg (btw they are white and the size of a pin head) between my fingers to slide them off each hair strand. It takes FOREVER!!!

* Have someone to vent to!!! This is not a easy task and you will want to lose your mind trying to make sure your family and house are free from it all. 

Seriously there needs to be a support group!