This has finally put me off the deep end

Hi there!
We have 4 daughters, ages 7, 6 and 2 year old twins. Although some things are getting easier we still feel like we are in survival mode most days. Well, something has happened to put me completely over the edge: HEAD LICE. I'm not kidding. This is the most overwhelmed I have felt since before my twins were born. I have about 20 loads of laundry to do because my messy kids had thrown their dirty laundry here and there, scattered among the clean laundry so I had to empty their dresser drawers and start from scratch. Since I have an old septic I can only do 2 loads a day. I have already gone to the laundry mat once and it was $75 just do some of it. I have treated all the kids and myself and my husband (since my school nurse said she found some eggs on my head.) Two of the kids have been treated twice and we have been spending hours upon hours going through every strand of hair. And everyone keeps telling us that all it takes is one little teeny tiny egg and it will start all over again. It just seems so impossible. I nursed twins for 15 months and right now that seems like a piece of cake. We had 2 nasty stomach bugs come through our house this winter...the second of which landed my 6 year old at the ER for dehydration and I would take all that any day compared to this because at least that was more temporary...there was an end in sight. I am really overwhelmed and wondering how I'm gonna make it through it. I gotta go....I have to vacuum the house and have my husband check my head.....sigh.

shannon

 

I am so sorry.. lice is the worst! I remember having an outbreak when I was in school and having to get head checks and all the laundry. It makes my head itchy just thinking about it. Hope this all passes quickly for you.

 

:hug:

Wow, yes that is a lot to handle! So sorry to hear you are going through this!

We just got a letter the other day that there was a case of lice at our kid's school. So far we haven't found any bugs yet but I don't even want to think about all the work it will take to get rid of them.

We've been having a pretty crappy month too between our childcare provider telling us she's moving away and not being able to find anyone to replace her yet, having financial problems and the girls getting sick again with colds and ear infections, etc.
I'm just wondering when issues are going to start resolving and getting better but there seems to be no end in sight.

I hope you're able to get through this quickly!

 

OMG, lice is the absolute worst! My DD has had it 4x'. She has almost waist length hair. Only once was it passed to the other 2 kids and once to me. It is a nightmare. We had to stop using the prescription stuff and the RID/NIX b/c I just couldn't put any more pesticides on her head. The first time was the worst b/c I just didn't know what to do. What we did was we used an all natural botanical oil produce (licekiller.com), keep all the stuffed animals in garbage bags for 3 weeks and wash bedding in hot water daily. Lice checks 3x's a day. It was awful and time consuming, but if one egg gets missed that's it. We also switched to using Fairytales brand Rosemary Repel shampoo,conditioner, conditioning spray. I have also been pulling her hair back and using their spray and shield. I've had friend call me up late at night freaking out about lice and I've let them use the licekiller products and they are blown away at how well they work. They make a product for your laundry and a spray for your house (carpet/furniture, etc.) too. I wish I could give you a hug b/c I know what you're going through and you feel so defeated. I don't know if it's like this in your house, but in mine my DH can't see those nits well and I end up having to do all the combing and picking. In turn, he gets to do all the laundry.

 

I am so sorry. That sounds just awful. We haven't had it yet here (my oldest kids are only 2), but I suppose it's coming in the future. Hugs to you!

 

Big :hug: I am so sorry that you have to deal with lice, that would totally set me off the deep end too!

 

Adding my 2 cents here...my oldest 3 (ages 6, 5, 3 at the time) got it last year. DH was gone and I had worked all night the night before so up with them without sleep....horrible experience! We try several things including Nix...but what finally worked for us was LiceFreee from Walgreens. It is a homeopathic gel treatment. It has 2 bottles, the shower caps, and a metal comb in the pack.

 

Go to the store and buy an old fashioned flea collar and put it in your vaccuum cleaner cannister. It will kill any lice that make it into your vaccuum. (Also a good trick with fleas!)

Put as much stuff in plastic bags as you can, make them airtight, and give them at least 3 weeks before you open them again. Good luck!!

 

:hug: Yes, that would send me over the edge too. :hug: I am sorry!

 

:hug: I would be jumping with you. Hang in there.

 

We went through this last year we eventually call in licesquad.com cost me close to $500.00 but we really struggled to get rid of them. The thing she suggested was putting white conditioned all over their head leave on at least an hour with shower cap. Then as you comb through wipe the conditioner on white paper towel and you can see the lice and eggs, keep doing every day until you don't see anymore, she did one of the girls hair I did other and then she did mine at $70 per hour soon adds up, but then I did it each night after. I really feel for you.

 

:hug: That would drive me over the edge too.

 

Boy do I understand this one! We JUST went through this, this winter. Paul Mitchell's tea tree oil shampoo can help keep them away once you treat and get rid of them. We have an epidemic here in our county schools. The kids aren't getting rid of them and keep passing it around to each other. The first thing I did was cut my sons hair! He had long "hockey" hair. He won't be having it anymore. The second thing we did is to bag up all stuffed animals. They are still in bags, LOL. The third thing is not to forget the coats, hats, scarves, gloves, etc that they wear. The normal sofa cleaning, vaccuming, bed linens are easy to remember but it's the odd items that you need to clean too. We had to go put their hockey helmets in a dryer that had a shelf to stop it rotating. Cleaning the hockey gear was not fun.

One thing you can do with girls is to use a straightening iron on their hair! The heat kills the nits and eggs. That is probably why I never got it from my children. I straighten my hair every time I wash it. A hair dryer on high helps also. Also using the tea tree oil shampoo regularly (at least once a week). You can even use it ever other shampoo for a while. It dries out the hair though so I recommend using the conditioner also.

The biggest thing is getting rid of ALL the nits and eggs from the start out of EVERYONE'S head!!! Use the good pesticide first to kill the eggs too. Then daily go through their hair until you aren't seeing any of the microscopic eggs left. At least you'll know everything is dead. Dead eggs can't hatch. We kept going through everyone head until we were finding nothing, then we went through every other day for a while longer.

I used a huge painting light on high with a good magnifying glass to go through the hair. Without them I would not have been able to see the tiniest eggs and I have extremely good vision!! Everything I used to wipe off the eggs went into a ziplock and then directly to the outside trash. The comb went into bleach water inbetween everyperson. The one son who brought it home had his own nit comb! I didn't want to chance giving it to someone else with his comb. Then we gave everyone their own color comb to use daily. No one uses someone elses comb.

The other thing I did was tell the boys to keep their heads away from everyone else. My son got it from my sisters girls at Christmas time. They from their girl scout troup. I can guarantee it's still going around the troup. Kids tend to get really close to each other even head to head when playing games, etc. That stopped!!! It just takes one bug to transfer back to their heads to start the cycle all over. UGH

BTW, our water bill was $250 the bill after the lice incident! I wanted to scream!!!

I hope you can get rid of it the first treatment like we did. I SO understand the nightmare of lice. I am so sorry!!!

 

wow! big UGH! so sorry!

 

Oh man! So sorry..UGH! :hug:

 

Here's the UPDATE: Rachael (one of my 2 year old twins) just threw up all over her crib and her carpet. I just can't believe it. It's going from bad to worse! Please tell me I'll laugh at this some day.

shannon

 

oh sooooo sorry! it has to get better, right?!

 

Oh man, I get this one as well. The last time we had lice was when I was 34 weeks preggo with the twins and I lost it when they phone me and said both my kids had it. I hope you get a break soon :hug: