What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

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mystery
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by mystery »

DS2 has clearly trained them to do the job for him; instead of a webcrawler he has programmed the first ever louse bookcrawler. He then of course has to read its mind.
Looking for help
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by Looking for help »

mystery wrote:DS2 has clearly trained them to do the job for him; instead of a webcrawler he has programmed the first ever louse bookcrawler. He then of course has to read its mind.
I would really like an explanation - what is a webcrawler, please :D

Oh my goodness you folk need to sort out your personal hygiene problems. We've given you loads of advice. :D
scarlett
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by scarlett »

Are you saying my family is unclean, LFH ? Do I need to hang a bell around our necks and daub a big , black cross on the front door ? :P
Looking for help
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by Looking for help »

I think so, yes :lol:
scarlett
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by scarlett »

:cry:
Looking for help
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by Looking for help »

Don't worry - if you read back and follow all the advice, I think you should be ok, esp the bit about shaving all the hair off :D
mystery
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by mystery »

Nope it's not us with the problem. I've researched this thoroughly now (as I always do) and come to the conclusion that the conditioner and combing method is unlikely to completely eradicate a head lice problem, and even if it does, it takes so long to get louse free that one has probably infected other children during the course of the "treatment" unless you do it all while you sun yourself on the beach for six weeks over the summer with some test papers for entertainment.

Only killing the lice and eggs (and only the nasty pesticidal ones do this, and they are sometimes foiled by the little bugs developing resistance) in one fell swoop is efficient and prevents your child infecting others further during the course of treatment, and even then you have to repeat once or twice to guarantee success.

But then there seems little point in using these as if others haven't done so, you could use the nasty chemical and get the little bugs back from another child within a couple of days.

So I have decided really that nothing works perfectly, we must be living with a low level of lice infestation a lot of the time while our children are young. They do seem to be a tenacious species, and as Scarlett has pointed out, are now developing literacy skills in Kent.

I have also read lots of info on the web about detecting infestations; most of it seems to be wrong to me. There was a parental campaigm website urging people to check weekly; but the suggested checking method was pretty useless - wet or drying nitcombing to find a live louse. You could easily miss an infestation by this method. It takes me 45 mins bathed in conditioner to get results sometimes.

So my new method is going to be, once this infestation is sorted, 45 mins with conditioner combing through each week to find live lice, and then Hedrin 3 times over 3 consecutive weeks if I find any live lice during the checking procedure.

But even with that regime there will be times during the 3 week treatment period when there will be live lice on the child's head.

The other thing a lot of the products do not tell you is that a residue of conditioner in the hair can render the chemicals less effective.

I need to end with a question. Do you all do a weekly check and how do you do it?
scary mum
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by scary mum »

Gosh, reading all this I realise how lucky we've been. So far DD had a very light infestation in year 4 and then the same 5 weeks later (presumably we hadn't got rid of all the eggs), but we are talking of about 4 live lice each time. other than that nothing - hope I'm not speaking too soon. Now if we were talking about the other infestation that 40% of children have at any one time...

I hope you guys get rid of them before we head off for Snowdrops' hen party :D
scary mum
hermanmunster
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by hermanmunster »

Intelligent lice down there....


I think one of the problems is that many kids are not symptomatic until they have had lice for 2-3 months and also they are often not detectable for 6 weeks or so after first infection..

....so if you "clear then completely" then see more on the child's head in a few days -they haven't caught them again they just were never cleared in the first place.
mystery
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Re: What am I doing wrong - Nitty Noras part 2

Post by mystery »

Yes I think people quite frequently think their child has caught them again from some other child in the class when it could well be they just never quite got rid of it all first time round.

But unless everyone shaves, even if everyone is super diligent, and whatever method you use, there are going to be quite long periods of time during "treatment" when there will still be live lice present on the head.

So I can see now why the public health doctors decided years ago to stop recommending the pesticidal method - the nasty organosphosphate method - and instead recommend the other lotions and potions around such as Hedrin. There's no point in using the really nasty stuff as it still doesn't entirely solve the problem either.

I always wonder if it could be some of the people who say their child has never had lice that are in fact carrying them? If you didn't have an allergy to the bites or the faeces then you wouldn't itch, so would you ever really notice you had them? If you had done the combing and conditioner for 45 minutes each week for a whole year and never found anything there's no incentive really to carry on with it is there?

So Scarlett, I don't think we have unclean children or houses. We should press ahead with the louse circus on the window ledge, the literate louse club, and the giant captive steak eating louse.

I think my children have learned far more about life cycles with our louse studies than they did through the Hungry Caterpillar etc. I feel a children's book with full colour illustrations at 50 times magnification coming on. Who will buy?
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