01/18/2002

Readers Discuss No More Lice

Other treatments for head lice surfaced in response to Ellen Ornato's thorough discussion of the subject (see previous article). I've also added mention of a Web site that discusses the pros and cons of non-standard treatments, such as paraffin, tea, oils, herbs and mayonnaise.

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Dear Beth,

After a horrible year of head lice (with four children) and trying everything to find that nothing worked, we returned to the USA from England to our wonderful pediatrician who suggested an electronic nit comb. Magic! All gone, (hopefully) never to return! "Nit free" now for one year! Only in the good ol' USA!

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I read with some interest this article. My family was a victim about 3 years ago. However, we found that the products of Rid and Nix have grown ineffective over the year. What we found, and it worked wonders, was a product called "Not Nice to Lice." It served as a shampoo and a treatment for infected furniture etc. Because it is based on an enzyme formula (according to the manufacturer) it should always be effective.

Unfortunately, I cannot tell you where to obtain the product as my wife found it through the Internet when she did a search for lice treatments.

Here is a link to the "Not Nice to Lice" product:
http://www.safe2use.com/nntl/sitemap-n.htm
(Editor's Note: Beth Bruno has never used this product, so this is not an endorsement.)

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Re: Head Lice and Treatments. Very unpleasant, but something we called "Paraffin Oil" was used very effectively. Saturate the hair— leave on for some time and then use the ivory fine tooth comb, combing the hair over a sheet of newspaper. You will hear the bugs dropping on the paper. I have one of the combs and it is now an antique! Obviously this goes back a long way.

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Beth, your article was very heartening. This past summer, my two kids were infected with these annoying creatures. I was disgusted and mortified. I knew NO ONE who admitted to encountering this problem in their offspring. One tip on nitpicking—it is amazingly time-consuming. I was shocked with how long it takes to do a thorough job. Using a magnifying glass, my son's crew cut took 45-60 minutes to explore. My daughter's chin length bob required 3 hours to examine every hair shaft. Parents should be aware of this huge time commitment. It is worth every minute to prevent a re-infestation. Thanks!

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LINKS:

Informative, detailed, thorough description of head lice habits, their lack of manners (infestation) and how to get rid of these rude critters are covered on the following site. Describes standard and non-standard treatments. http://fly.hiwaay.net/~sseale/nonstd.html#nonstd

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Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.