Getting Rid of Lice: It’s a Real Head Scratcher

Scientists announced earlier this year a new strain of “super lice” has been discovered in 25 different states. The lice developed genetic mutations that desensitized them to the organic insecticides in most anti-lice shampoos.

Parents who have relied on these shampoos are finding these newly evolved bugs much harder to eliminate.

The CDC estimates that 6 to 12 million kids between ages three and 11 contract lice each year.

To make matters worse, the American Academy of Pediatrics recently changed its lice policy. “Head lice are not a health hazard,” the group announced, “or a sign of poor hygiene and, in contrast to body lice, are not responsible for the spread of any disease. No healthy child should be excluded from or miss school because of head lice, and no-nit policies for return to school should be abandoned. Informed school nurses can help with diagnosis and suggestions about treatment.”

Schools, as a result, are relaxing their standards for lice treatment.

For some parents, this means they don’t have to stay home from work to nit-pick their kids’ hair. Other parents are frustrated because their kids keep coming home with lice thanks to other kids in the class. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 6 to 12 million kids between the ages of three to 11 contract lice each year.

Pat Bringenburg has worked as an office manager for Denver Public Schools for 20 years. She says the standards for health have changed during her tenure. “They don’t feel like it’s a health hazard anymore,” she said. “I think a lot of it is because of the standardized testing and this huge race to the top. You can’t send the kids home. They want kids to be in school.”

Related: Nurses in Schools: Few and Far Between

Many schools lack a full-time nurse and have to rely on nurses who come in only once a week, she said. When that happens, the office staff has to deal with kids who are sick — and that includes kids with lice issues. “I didn’t go into my job to be a nurse. I’m not into that stuff.”

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For parents, lice seems to be a never-ending cycle. Aubrey Jones of Tempe, Arizona, has four daughters with long hair. Three of them got lice last year — and the lice kept coming back. The girls got their first bout of lice in August 2015, but Jones didn’t recognize it for what it was initially.

“I had checked their heads, but I didn’t really know what I was looking for. You think of nits as white, and they’re not. They’re black, because it’s a clear eggshell with a bug inside.” It looked like sand to her at first. But after more research, she realized that three of her daughters indeed had lice.

Jones did everything she could to get rid of it — washing sheets and clothes, putting stuffed animals in the garage, applying treatments. She tried an insecticide shampoo to kill the bugs, and then she sat her girls down in front of a movie and combed through their hair for five or six hours, picking out every nit. It worked.

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That is, until her girls came down with it again the following January. This time it was a four-month battle. Jones is a busy mom with obligations in her church and community. “I didn’t take the time to sit down again for four hours combing heads like the first time. I would get rid of the bugs — but if you don’t get rid of all those nits, they just keep coming back.”

She tried shampoos, she combed through their hair — and thought she was done. One day, her eight-year-old daughter came to her and said, “I just pulled a bug out of my hair.” Jones was fed up. She lathered her daughters’ heads with thick conditioner to smother the bugs, and she picked through their hair section by section until she was sure she had found every egg. Just to be safe, she kept her daughters home from school the next day and hired a professional to nit-pick their heads. It set her back $150 — but “it was worth every penny for peace of mind.”

Setting aside the shame of a lice infection can go a long way toward preventing outbreaks.

More families are discovering what Jones did: The lice aren’t responding to treatments as they once did. Parents have resorted to alternative treatments, like essential oils, to get rid of them. However, research on these oils and their effect on lice is still early. Some studies have shown that tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil have antiseptic properties and could be effective for lice. But these oils are not regulated and can be abrasive to children’s skin when not diluted. Other natural substances like rosemary could also help.

Risa Barash, the “Lice Lady” and owner and founder of Fairy Tales Haircare in the New York City area, said parents can take simple steps to avoid lice. “Always keep hair up in a braid or ponytail and keep flyaways down with gel or hairspray,” she said. “Teach kids not to share hats, helmets, brushes, headbands — you get the idea. This is how lice can move from head to head.”

Setting aside the shame of a lice infection can go a long way toward spurring communication and preventing outbreaks, Barash told LifeZette.

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“Increased outbreaks can happen when parents are embarrassed to tell schools right away that they found lice on their child. If people talked more openly about lice outbreaks and worked together on treating and preventing them, school outbreaks wouldn’t be as bad — they would be properly prevented. My request would be more communication, education on lice, and understanding among parents.”

When Jones finally got rid of lice for good, she had to work two full days and shell out a sizable chunk of money. Still — she doesn’t want to deal with lice in her house ever again.