It was on my free Monday morning, after a busy weekend, that I received the phone call. I had just dropped off my children at school and daycare and was preparing for a relaxing day to indulge in TV and some artwork, when my phone rang.
The call was from my children’s daycare!
I sighed—knowing any call from daycare is usually bad news. It could be an illness; someone had a fever, diarrhea, vomiting, etc., or it could be an injury; my son bit or had been bitten—I actually prefer the latter, but I wasn’t ready for any today, so I ignored the phone at first.
My phone rang again and I declined it. The third call came soon after; all three calls came within two minutes. I knew this was serious and I’ll have to pick it up. I braced myself, hoping it was just another Covid outbreak. “Hello?”
It was a female’s voice; “Please come and pick up your daughter, she’s been scratching her head and she has head lice!”
Just like that— She gave it to me as if it was a mere nose bleed or cold. “Excuse me, ehm…ehm, what do you mean?”
She repeated the exact statement as if she had rehearsed it prior to the phone call.
“Lice, how could that be? She can’t have lice! It’s must be dandruff.”
“Look, we’ve checked everyone else and she’s the only one that has it. She’s in isolation right now and you should come pick her up right away,” the lady insisted.
I slumped into the couch and took in a deep breath. It’s alright. It’s all lies, it can’t be lice, I told myself in denial. But truth be told, my wife had noticed that our 5-year-old daughter had been scratching her head a few days ago. We thought it was her braids, which had stayed on for too long. Our daughter was also tom-boyish—the type that readily shows off her cartwheels and headstands in the playground. It wasn’t unusual to have her come home with her hair full of sand.
I found my poor girl seated alone by the daycare front desk, isolated from the rest of her class like a patient just diagnosed with Covid. She had her arms wrapped around her downcast head. She ran towards me as soon as she saw me. I wasn’t going to stop a girl I had hugged every day for the past week from embracing me—just because she now has lice. I hugged her and she held on tightly.
I searched her head right away and saw what looked like nits: those tiny eggs that cling to the root of the hair. I could tell they weren’t dandruff because they won’t dislodge easily.
“I’m not convinced she has lice,” I said, shaking my head, “but we’re going to treat her anyway.”
“Don’t worry dear, even if it’s head lice, we’ll take care of it,” I told my daughter in the car. We went straight to Walmart and I got the cheapest lice killing treatment I could find. I later realized we would need more than the cheapest shampoo in stock. But I was still able to make a complete lice eradication kit for less than $20.
When we got home, I picked up a magnifying glass and parted her hair to inspect it thoroughly.
To my shock, I found a tiny creepy villain in her hair. I didn’t need a magnifying glass to see that it was crawling! My body crawled in recoil as well.
I couldn’t believe this horror. I called my wife right away, but she didn’t pick up her phone. I sent her a text about the current calamity at the home front. I knew that she wouldn’t believe the horror at first, and I’d have to show her some real proof. So I fetched a bottle of water and went fishing again.
Eventually, we had six bugs floating in the water as evidence, and my daughter was grinning with excitement. I wish I had taken pictures right then, but this was an emergency and I didn’t think of it as a bloggable moment at all. Unfortunately, my daughter soon knocked off the water bottle in her frenzy about the bugs and we had no drowning lice to show my wife when she got home from work.
“Where does it itch now?” I asked my daughter and she pointed out a spot on her head.
My wife searched the spot and screamed when she found a life one scurrying down a hair strand.
“I told you!” My daughter said, smiling with satisfaction. But she soon lost that smile as I untangled her braids, and she was crying when I went to work on her hair with a good pair of scissors.
My wife too didn’t like the idea of a short haircut too. “They’re going to make fun of her and think she has cancer,” she complained.
It wasn’t until we saw thousands of nits and lice falling off into the bathtub as we washed off the lice shampoo, that we all realized that this head lice business was much more serious than we had thought. We would have to take the 3-step process seriously to get rid of the issue.
Here are some simple tips for treating head lice
The shampoo instruction explained that treating head lice is a simple three-step process:
- Treat with shampoo.
- Remove the lice and nit with a fine-toothed comb.
- Control the environment.
Parents often complain that over-the-counter shampoos aren’t as effective as prescribed ones. I don’t believe that it’s the counter shampoos that are inadequate. I think folks aren’t just following through on treatment steps. I also believe it should really be a four-step process:
The four steps to getting rid of head lice.
- Cut the hair
- Treat with shampoo.
- Remove the lice and nit with a fine-toothed comb.
- Control the environment.
Cutting and combing the hair, are the most important measures for successfully treating head lice.
As much as I’d prefer not to offend the pharmaceutical industry, I’d be negligent if I fail to say that I believe steps 1 and 3; cutting and combing the hair, are the most important measures for successfully treating head lice. You can theoretically eradicate head lice with just these two steps alone.
The four steps to getting rid of head lice.
Step one: You will need to cut the hair. The shorter the better. It would be futile treating head lice if you’ve got long hair or braids where they could easily hide. If you’re one of those mothers who gets sensitive about cutting your daughter’s hair, let an insensitive man handle this step.
Step two: Treat with shampoo. We also treated our older daughter, even though we didn’t find any nits on her hair, but our daughters often share beds, and we wanted to make sure we didn’t get a family outbreak. In reality, head lice aren’t as contagious as a lot of people think. Many over-the-counter shampoos contain pyrethrin, a form of permethrin. Although the bottle I bought recommends leaving the stuff on for only 10 minutes, I left the shampoo on my daughter’s hair for one hour, and she didn’t have any issues with it. This is because when I prescribe the related permethrin cream for scabies treatment, I tell parents to leave the cream on the skin overnight for 8 hours. That said, I’ll still recommend erring on the side of caution and following your shampoos’ instructions. (Please read my disclaimer.)
Step three: Remove the lice and nit with a fine-toothed comb: Combing is a crucial step for success and must be repeated daily for the first week. Most lice are killed by the shampoo, but their eggs are much tougher and often survive to hatch in a few days. That’s why most instructions recommend retreatment after one week. I didn’t think much about this step at first, but after seeing the plenty nits lodged on the small plastic comb that came with the shampoo. I took this step seriously and went back to Walmart to get a better comb. You can build your own complete lice eradication kit for less than $20.
Combing is a crucial step for success and must be repeated daily for the first week.
Step four: Control: This is the part that many people neglect. You may not be able to wash every item that your child uses, but try washing as many clothes as you can. These include pillowcases, towels, hats, beddings and blankets, etc., and dry them in high heat for at least 20 minutes. You should then spray the rest of the items you can’t wash. Here’s the checklist of items that need to be sprayed or washed according to the lice shampoo manufacturer:
Control Checklist
- Home and auto upholstery
- Mattresses, pillows,
- pillowcases
- Bed linen
- Towels
- Stuffed animals,
- Toys
- Headphones
- Hats
- Headbands
- Bike/sports helmets
- Coats, scarves,
- Earmuffs, gloves
- Playmats
- Clothing
- Barrettes/hair
- ornaments
- Hair rollers
- Combs and brushes
- Baseball caps
Complete Lice Eradication Kit
Here’s a cost analysis of items that I purchased for a complete kit.
- Equate Lice Killing Shampoo: $6.98
- RID Home Lice, Bed bug and Dust mite spray, 5 oz, spray: $5.36
- LiceGuard Egg & Lice Combing Kit: $5.12
At the end of the day, I only spent $17.46 for my kit, compared to most of the complete kits that are sold from $24 to $30.
Good luck if your child has head lice.
Your Baby’s Comfort is Our Mission.
Andrew Faniku MD
Andrew is a committed family man and pediatrician who is focused on improving your baby's comfort. In his spare time, he writes short stories and makes acrylic paintings.He is also learning to use social media. Please connect with him on social media.
