Get that Louse Outta My House | 6 Steps To Get Rid of Lice

This is very much a post that I never thought I would write.  My girls are 7, 5 and 3 and we have never had lice.  Every time I would hear of friends dealing with it I would sigh, convey my condolences and then ‘knock on wood’ that my girls never got them.  Well, it finally happened.  While everyone was ringing and haza-ing in the new year, we were de-lousing our house.  Ew.

Before last week, here is what I knew about lice: they are bugs that live in your hair.  Yep, that’s it.  I couldn’t tell you what to look for or how to tell if your kids have them.  Until the moment when I looked down at my daughters hair brush and saw a louse, I was clueless.  But oh how quickly that changes.

Within minutes I was texting friends whose kids I knew had encountered them.  What do I do?  Where do I start?  What do I look for?  How do I get rid of them? How do I know when they are gone?  My questions were endless.  I turned to my best friend whose information is limitless – her name is google – and began figuring out where to start.  Here is some of the information that blew me away:

Lice live in the Phoenix area 365 days a year (not true of other areas of the country).  Lice prefer clean shiny hair.  You cannot wash lice out of hair.  Lice eggs are called nits.  Nits look like dandruff and cling to hair – they can’t be brushed off like dandruff can.  Lice only like certain people and females better than males (they like to hide in long thick hair).  Lice don’t like african-american hair (lucky).  Lice are shared through person to person contact – they do not jump or fly.  Thus a louse must go from an infected persons head to an uninfected head and ta-da, you have lice.  Lice are most commonly shared among kids at school because backpacks and jackets are most commonly hung or stacked on each other.

Now that you’re as educated as I am about lice, here’s my list of the 6 things to do when you find a louse in your house:

1. Panic.

2. Quickly transport yourself to the closest drug store for lice shampoo.  The best Phoenix has to offer (based on testimony of MANY friends and personal use) is called TLC and it’s found at Walgreens.

3. Nit comb (also found at the drug store) every single little hair on their head.

4. Vacuum. Everything.

5. Launder. Everything.

6. Recover from panic and repeat steps 1-5 every day for the next 7 days.

Simple, right?  Ok, so the truth is if you’re like me and freaking out about that fact that all three of your girls (and possibly yourself) have lice, that same great shampoo manufacturer is located here in the valley and they do house calls for a pretty penny.  In my case they were a total life lice-saver and worth all those pretty pennies.  AND you can find out anything you’d ever want to know about lice on their website.  Yes, I am promoting them for free.  They are that good.

Please tell me I’m not alone.  Got any lice experience to share?