Lice policy

[Anonymous]

I think kids with lice should have to stay home. Otherwise the lice merry-go-round doesn't end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks everyone, this thread is so helpful! There is major lice infestation in DC's class at school. We did the treatment/comb-through 10 days ago. Then 3 days ago I found a bug so did the treatment/comb-through again. This morning I saw some nits and picked them out. I will comb through again with the lice comb this evening. Ugh!

Make sure you are doing everyone in the house. #learnedthehardway

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think kids with lice should have to stay home. Otherwise the lice merry-go-round doesn't end.

Come now. Lice are gross, but they don't hurt anything. To my mind, the problem is people who think they've deloused because they shampooed but haven't gotten them all. And my kids had lice for weeks before we realized it. Also school nurses are notorious for saying dandruff is nits.

[Anonymous]

DCPS has a major lice problem that keeps recurring. We do weekly comb outs but the lice appear anyway almost every month there is something. The rules are too,lax and our school doesn't even have a nurse anymore to check for it. We need parents to do their best at getting treatment but DCOS needs to do more to help eradicate this! It's so stressful and frustrating all the time! I never had lice as a kid, but my children now come home with it almost every month they are in school!

[Anonymous]

Weekly combouts aren't enough if you have lice. It has to be daily for weeks. This may not be an issue of continually catching lice, but rather you aren't ever completely eradicating them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weekly combouts aren't enough if you have lice. It has to be daily for weeks. This may not be an issue of continually catching lice, but rather you aren't ever completely eradicating them.

Why do you believe you are correct about this? I was a lice lady and I don't agree.

The life cycle of the louse is such that if you comb weekly, you disrupt the reproductive cycle of lice. Lice take a week to sexually mature. Eggs take a week to hatch. (approximately).

I will grant that during the seven days between combings, if there is a live louse on little Larla, it could get onto another family member. This is why it's smart to do weekly combings of all family members if you are sure one of your kids has had lice.

Sure in between combings you might have "louse", not "lice". But if you keep up regular (weekly) combings the problem is not going to be able to get a foothold.

[Anonymous]

Oh God, I have been there with lice...
The shampoos do mainly work to kill the live lice that are crawling around.
However, they are not foolproof against the eggs (nits).
Therefore, you must comb. And comb. And comb. For several weeks. Using conditioner and a good lice comb.
If you insisted that kids with nits could not come to school, kids would be out for weeks. Which is pointless because they're not going to give it to anyone.

If people just do the shampoo and comb with the lousy (ha) plastic comb that comes in the shampoo box, no way they are getting rid of their lice!!

The lice lady may correct me, but by the time you start itching, the lice have been there for a while...even months...for the population to build up to where you notice it. So someone who does the lice treatment and "gets" lice "again" weeks later probably just never fully got rid of their own lice.

Having been through that fiasco, we have a lice comb and conditioner and make it a weekly habit to just do a quick comb through to check for lice.

[Anonymous]

Think for a moment about why children are allowed to go to school with nits. First, although nits and lice are gross and irritating, they don't actually carry disease. Nobody is getting sick from lice. Second, lower SES families get especially hurt if kids can't go to school with nits. They may not have the resources/access to info about how to get rid of lice - not paying $300 for the lice lady to visit their house. If their kid has to stay home with nits, they can't go to work or the kid might not be properly supervised. And then a kid who really needs to be in school has to miss school.

Yeah, it sucks to deal with a lice infestation but we have to get over the stigma and talk about it, to have any hope of defeating them.

[Anonymous]

FYI I have for a few years now had my 9 year old lice comb herself regularly in the shower. She is pre-emptively getting any lice off her before it becomes an infestation. Tonight she called me in because she found one adult louse on her. I checked her over and found no others. Either she'd already gotten them or this was the first settler in this round of lice.

We will continue to do this weekly throughout the school year.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Op here- not angry just grossed out. Can't believe the kids don't have to go home and be checked before they can come back.

We were told that the official policy is that if a family self-reports, the child must be cleared by the school nurse before going back to school. Also that it would be helpful to bring the treatment we used to show the nurse. Lice was going around DD's class this fall. The school sent home flyers reminding parents to check their kids and saying that there had been cases of lice in DD's grade. When DD had lice, I shampooed and combed and then shampooed and combed again a week later per the instructions. Two weeks after the first case (after being clean for two weeks), she had them again, so I strongly suspect that the other parents were not checking/treating/reporting. I was told that DCPS cannot do any more than that. That even if there is a case reported in one class/grade, they couldn't proactively check the whole class. I understand not checking the whole school, but I think that not checking the class makes little sense. I don't think very highly of our school nurse, and strongly suspect that not checking is mostly him being lazy, rather than an official prohibition.

The problem with the instructions going around is that you only need to shampoo and comb out twice. If there are some left over nits after the first week, they will hatch the second week. It's important to nit comb 3 days in a row, one week later, and then again on week two. OTC Shampoos do not work. Combing the hair and then keeping your child'a hair up or very cut short is key to prevention.

I don't know why you think that the OTC shampoos do not work. I used them on my DD's straight blonde hair when I found live, adult lice crawling around. After the shampoo, they were not crawling and we combed them out with the metal comb. The shampoo works. It just doesn't work 100% and that's why combing is also necessary.

So because it worked in your child's bland hair doesn't mean it will work for those of us with different types of hair.

I'm sorry that they don't work on your "DIFFERENT" hair. What I was saying was that the statement "OTC Shampoos do not work" (bolded above) isn't necessarily accurate, since they did work for my child. And thanks for your dig about "BLAND" hair. Clearly you're a really nice person.

Did your child get them again a couple weeks later? If so, they didn't work.

This was last year, and no. She got them once. We shampooed using the OTC shampoo and combed. She had no lice all summer. Then she got them again this year. Since we used (the same) OTC shampoo and (the same) comb, she hasn't had them again. But thanks for your attitude! Like I said, clearly a nice person.

The shampoos that use chemicals to kill lice do not work on the eggs. So even if it kills all the lice, there may still be eggs on the hair. Given that the chemical shampoos are dangerous and don't get you out of having to comb everyday for two weeks (to get rid of the lice that hatch from the eggs), I personally don't see the advantage of using them. I did, however, love LiceMD, which suffocates the live lice. I used that plus combing every day for two weeks. https://www.amazon.com/LiceMD-Lice-Treatment-4-Ounce-Bottle/product-reviews/B0010Y5EV0

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here- not angry just grossed out. Can't believe the kids don't have to go home and be checked before they can come back.

We were told that the official policy is that if a family self-reports, the child must be cleared by the school nurse before going back to school. Also that it would be helpful to bring the treatment we used to show the nurse. Lice was going around DD's class this fall. The school sent home flyers reminding parents to check their kids and saying that there had been cases of lice in DD's grade. When DD had lice, I shampooed and combed and then shampooed and combed again a week later per the instructions. Two weeks after the first case (after being clean for two weeks), she had them again, so I strongly suspect that the other parents were not checking/treating/reporting. I was told that DCPS cannot do any more than that. That even if there is a case reported in one class/grade, they couldn't proactively check the whole class. I understand not checking the whole school, but I think that not checking the class makes little sense. I don't think very highly of our school nurse, and strongly suspect that not checking is mostly him being lazy, rather than an official prohibition.

If they reappeared two weeks later, it is most likely because you stopped combing and there were still eggs. Once you get them, you must comb every other day for several weeks. Don't blame others for your mistakes.

Agree. Girl, you gotta comb, comb, and then comb again.

The newly hatched juveniles are the toughest ones to harness. They're very tiny and good at hiding. It's easier to comb the adults and nits. You can miss the babies, they reach sexual maturity in a week or so, lay eggs, and then those hatch in another week. Bingo, there's your two week cycle, and you have another infestation to manage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If there are nits, then aren't there live bugs too? This dies t make sense to me.

In theory, all it takes is one pregnant bug to make it's way onto a new host. She may die, get injured, drop off, but the nits are still there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks everyone, this thread is so helpful! There is major lice infestation in DC's class at school. We did the treatment/comb-through 10 days ago. Then 3 days ago I found a bug so did the treatment/comb-through again. This morning I saw some nits and picked them out. I will comb through again with the lice comb this evening. Ugh!

This was perhaps the most helpful AMA thread, ever. It will change your life.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/401192.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Use a lot of conditioner, it will trap the bugs in the goo. Then comb them out with a GOOD lice comb (not the plastic thing from the drugstore, but an actual metal lice comb with ridges).

Do it 3 or 4x in a 2 week period and your problems will be over. (Until the next time a child with lice in your DC's classroom spreads her bugs with everyone).

Where can you buy a good live comb?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Use a lot of conditioner, it will trap the bugs in the goo. Then comb them out with a GOOD lice comb (not the plastic thing from the drugstore, but an actual metal lice comb with ridges).

Do it 3 or 4x in a 2 week period and your problems will be over. (Until the next time a child with lice in your DC's classroom spreads her bugs with everyone).

Where can you buy a good live comb?

^ lice comb, not live comb!