We Have LICE

N.,
I have never had to deal with head lice... THANKFULLY. My kids are grown adults with childern of their own, so I don't have any advice on the head lice and cleaning. But I can offer up a tidbit about washing baseball caps. My son to this day still has me wash his, I put them in the top rack of the dishwasher and run them thru the cycle, using the hottest temp that I have.After the dishwasher runs its coarse, I would place the cap over a bowl ( One that the cap fits snuggly over) and let air dry. Brandon has never had any damage to the brims of his caps..... Good Luck with head lice clean up. I hope you get the advice you are looking for!!!
A.

The dryer should work but I always put pillows, stuffed animals anything that could not be washed in a large dark garbage bag and left it in the garage for a month. I do not remember the time span exactly but I did wash every thing again I believe a week later.
As for the bites, check with your doctor. I have heard of people actually having an allergic reaction to bites from lice.
After lice coming home from school twice I started spraying hairspray on my daughters hair every morning before they went to school. We never had a problem after that.

for anything you can't wash (the pillows and hats), tie it up in a plastic garbage bag and leave it for a couple weeks...with nothing to survive on, the lice will die and by that time any eggs will have hatched and died...I'm guessing your itching is just due to the bites, continue to comb daily as well as check your husband and son just to be sure...I feel your frustration! I was director at a daycare before i had my kids and this season is the worst!!! I can't even count the number of times we had to treat the whole daycare facility (as well as my house and car to be sure)! I would keep with the vaccuuming too just to be sure...better safe than sorry...and make sure you get rid of the bag if you don't have a bagless...don't let this discourage you from playgroup...just remind your son not to share hats, coats, scarves, etc. with anyone...and do a weekly check through the fall and winter...that way you'll catch any problems before they are out of control...some of the daycare moms used to tell me to do a weekly rinse of my hair with vinegar as a preventative...I don't really know if this works at all but I did it anyway...it didn't hurt and it at least stripped the styling product residue from my hair :) Good luck!

You must check and comb every other day for a total of 21 days starting from the day you were LIVE bug free.
As far as your home throwing things in the dryer, or bagging them for a week in sufficent. REMEMBER the bug needs human blood to survive. After 48 hours of NO feeding it dies.
Please continue to check yourselves and your family. The eggs can be microscopic and if you miss ONE you are back to square one. THE most miserable headache of lice.
Check out Fairy Tales Haircare products or use a Tea tree Shampoo. This smell prevents the bugs in the future.

Good Luck!

Hi N.,
I have been a hairdresser for 20 years and I have dealt with this before. This is what I have learned.

1. Make sure you wash your linens in very hot water. If they can't be washed in the hot cylce, wash them in the warmest temp you can. The hot dryer should do the rest.

Lice need blood to survive, and they will not live long without it! And, it is totally false that lice will jump from one person to the next. They CAN NOT do this.

2. Pillows (and anything you can't wash in washer) Put your pillows in a grabage bag and close it very tightly and leave them for a couple weeks.

You can also buy spray for the mattresses and couches. Make sure you dump the vacuum bag/cup as soon as you are done vacuuming.

3. You can put the hats in the dishwasher if you have one. If you don't, you can also put them in a garbage bag for a couple of days.

4. You may be itching form just thinking about it(your mind playing tricks on you. I am itching now just writing about it!)! I know when we were at work and we had a lice case, we would all start ictching after that. About the pimples, you may want to see the doc about that. You could be having an allergic reaction to the bites or the medicine. In my 20+ years of hairdressing, I have never seen pimples.

Good luck to you and I hope this helps. My son is 17 months old and I dread him coming home with lice when he starts school, but so is life and you deal with it, no matter what it takes, right?

They have hat "shapers" that will hold the shape of your hat so you can wash them in the dishwasher. The Harriet Carter catalog has them. They are less than $10

http://www.harrietcarter.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product...

For all hats, stuffed animals and the like, place them in a plastic garbage bag, seal it up and leave them for two weeks. Then vacuum the items as best you can. Lice eggs can live for a week or two off the body. Lice themselves die within 24 hours.

Good Luck!

I had lice when I was a little kid, and I remember my mom putting our stuffed animals, pillows, etc. in plastic garbage bags. The lack of oxygen kills the lice. But I think you need to leave everything in the bags for a few weeks, just to be safe. Good luck!

NO, fleas are alot easier to get rid of compared to lice. I have had both. Been there. It is not fun and it is tiring. There is a spray in a bottle that you can get to spray furniture, carpets, pillows, & matresses. It will be with the head lice shampoo just follow the directions. Your pillows along with stuff animals need to sealed into plastic bags along with pillows and hats seal tightly and leave alone for I believe three weeks. The spray bottle will have dirctions for you. Also, spray the cloth fabric and carpet in your vehicles. As for you, you will probably want to reshampoo with the head lice shampoo in 7 days to get any lice that have hatched from even one single eggs being missed. I do not have animals, but I would call the vet to see if your animals need to be treated becasue if they can have the lice then they just keep spreading it around the house. Good luck.

Hello!
I've been washing my husbands "favorite hats" for years. We live on a farm , so he's always wearing a hat. I bought a plastic thing shaped like a hat that's made for washing hats at Target. You put the hat in it and throw it in the wash on the gental cycle and wash like usual. I keep it in the plastic thing until it's air dried. Hope this helps.
I remember we had lice once. The only way to get rid of them is to do all that you're doing, except it' needs to be done ALL in the same day. I also took all of the bedding to the laundry mat and washed them there. It was a real pain, but I took the day off from work and just buckled down and did it. We also put all the hair brushes in a sink filled with boiled soapy water. You can also buy a powder made for lice that you sprinkle on and between the mattresses.

There is a spray out that you can use on things that are not washable. I'm sorry I can't remember the name, but you can get it at a drug store. I used it on my mattress & other furniture. We did throw out most bed & throw pilows. I was told freezing those items would also work. What I did was spray the pillows with the spray, put them in a plastic bag & out in the garage they went for the whole cold Chicago winter. I went through hell with the lice that I got from my neices. The itching will subside. You can use T-Gel shampoo, it will help the itching, but might sting a bit too. It was 10 years ago, that I got the lice & til this day, whenever my head itches, I worry. I had very long hair & had to cut off 8 inches of it to make it easier to get those pesky things out.
Good Luck!
S.

There is a spray you can spray on things that can't be washed. Another idea is putting smaller things like hats, stuffed animals, etc in a plastic bag and sealing them up for a few weeks. Good luck.

J. R.

Hey N.,

About the hats...if it's a newer hat, you can wash it in the washing machine. The brims are now made of plastic, so it won't lose it's shape with a good washing. I wash my husband's hats all the time (he works outside and wears hats ALL the time!)

Good luck!