BingBumpier
BingBumpier
If a school nurse just sent your kid home with a note about head lice, you do not need to panic, take time off work, or rip apart your house. Treatment is a finite, well-defined task. Here is what to do.
Treat only people who actually have live lice. The shampoos are pesticides, mild ones, but pesticides — there is no reason to apply them prophylactically to a kid who is not infested. Check every family member with bright light, a metal nit comb, and damp conditioned hair. Live bugs and nits firmly cemented to the hair shaft within a quarter inch of the scalp confirm an active case.
Head to any Clackamas-area pharmacy and pick up an over-the-counter pediculicide. Permethrin 1% (Nix) and pyrethrin (RID) are the standards. Apply per the package instructions and rinse. Plan to do a second application around day nine to catch lice that hatch from eggs the first round missed.
If two cycles of one OTC product do not clear it, the local lice strain may be resistant. Ask your pediatrician about spinosad (Natroba) or ivermectin lotion (Sklice). Both are prescription, both are more expensive, and both typically clear stubborn cases in a single application.
This is the part most people undercount, and it is also the part that decides whether you are back at the pharmacy in two weeks. Use a metal nit comb on damp conditioned hair. Section the hair into one-inch strips. Comb each strip from scalp to tip. Wipe the comb on a paper towel between strokes. Repeat the full process every two to three days for two weeks.
Lice cannot live more than about two days off a human scalp, so you do not need to clean obsessively. Hot-wash and high-dry the pillowcases, hats, hair ties, and brushes that touched an infested head in the last two days. Items that cannot be washed go in a sealed plastic bag for two weeks. A single vacuum of the couch and car seats covers the rest.
If you have multiple kids, a stubborn case that has not responded to OTC, or simply do not have the time and patience for the combing-out phase, a professional lice removal service in the Portland metro is often worth the money. They handle the combing themselves in a single session and most include a follow-up check.
Read next: Lice Removal Seattle · Lice Removal Clackamas