Lice 101

How to Check For and Treat Lice

Checking for lice

(Text provided by Washington mom Rebecca Brams)

The way to thoroughly check for lice is using a good, fine-toothed metal lice comb (see below for a recommendation), put conditioner in wet hair, and comb thoroughly from scalp through ends of hair. With each comb, wipe the comb on a white paper towel. Look for tiny bugs (live lice) and for things that look like tiny brown sesame seeds (live nits). Not everyone is allergic and not everyone will scratch. The ONLY way to really know if your kid has lice is to comb - just looking won’t tell you for sure!

More about the best way to check: using above comb, slather hair with cheap white conditioner, starting at base of neck and around ears (where lice like to lay eggs) pull comb through from scalp (kind of digging into scalp to start) all the way to end of hair. Wipe thick glob of conditioner on white paper towel. If there are any nits they will show up on paper towel. Young nits are brown and oval shaped (like an egg). As they mature they become darker. Often you'll get little bits of dirt that are not nits. Any live lice or nits will show up on paper towel. If you find live lice put them in a bowl of water for safe keeping until you're done and then flush them down toilet. Go through whole head.

I have found a small kid microscope to be very useful in identifying what’s a nit, what’s a louse (versus a gnat or other tiny bug), and what’s a piece of tiny lint or dirt. Here’s an inexpensive microscope. This is to look at what you found on the paper towel so you know you’re identifying things correctly and not stressing out over sand. 

If your child has lice

First of all, DON’T PANIC!

However, if your child has active, adult lice, he/she/they must stay home from school. You will have to do multiple combings over many days in order to get rid of them completely. Otherwise the live nits will hatch and mature, and the lice will continue. Nix shampoo does tend to be effective in the Berkeley area, but it only kills live lice, not nits. You will have to do more combing once the nits hatch! This is a bug - you're fighting the life cycle of the bug. 

The best comb to get is the Nit Free Terminator or look for something similar in stores (plastic nit combs are not reliable)

NO NEED to go crazy with vacuuming and laundry. Wash sheets in hot water and dry on hot. Put blankets in dryer on hot for 1 hour. Put stuffed animals in dryer on hot for 1 hour or in the freezer overnight (good for bike helmets too). Lice can't live off the head for more than 1-2 days.

There are lots of images/youtube videos about what to look for. Generally if it looks like dandruff and you can easily flick it away, it is dandruff. Nits stick to hair tightly and cannot be easily flicked away.

Lots of useful information including a program of which days to comb to make sure you don’t miss one and have a re-infestation: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/theliceprogram/theprogram.html

Some people also recommend using a hair dryer on hair after it has been treated and/or combed.

Put long hair in ponytail or braid with hair spray until lice are gone in school. Tea tree oil shampoo & conditioner are good to use (Trader Joe’s has inexpensive versions) because lice aren’t a big fan of tea tree oil. This is preventative; it won’t get rid of them once you already have them.

Returning to school

According to BUSD, “If a student is found with active, adult head lice, he/she shall be excluded from attendance. The parent/guardian of an excluded student shall receive information about recommended treatment procedures and sources of further information. The student shall be allowed to return to school the next day if the student is free from active adult head lice; the student shall be checked by the nurse or designee before returning to class.”

So once your student no longer has active, adult head lice, they are free to come back to class.