Posts Tagged ‘lice treatment’
The children who are coming home from overnight camps on a daily basis are spreading their unwanteds among us. So while it’s great seeing our children for the first time in a long while their re-entry into our homes isn’t so wonderful now. Head lice is among us!
A nit(lice egg) takes 7-10 days to hatch after being laid. If your camper was “checked” visually after their camp session ended and did not have an advanced head lice case, it may have been missed. The little buggers could still be waiting for the right moment to hatch. Don’t stop hugging your children, just start checking them with a good metal lice comb
, on a wet head, for lice and/or nits.
We have also seen an increase in head lice cases at day camps. Why? As camps get into their 5th and 6th weeks the head lice cases are becoming more advanced and the lice is spreading from child to child easily.
We all want to enjoy our summer evenings so if we are proactive and perform weekly head checks we can take care of head lice “situations” before they become head lice “frustrations”.
-Elizabeth Mishkin, Marketing Director
Lice Lifters LLC www.licelifters.com
Lice and African-American hair
Posted on: July 17, 2012
Although factors such as hair texture may make African-Americans less likely than Caucasians to get head lice, they are not immune to becoming infested.
This week we had a 9 year old African-American girl with massive amounts of hair being treated for lice. The girl had lice for at least 2 months, and her mom was surprised that she had lice. It took a lot of The Nit Nanny Mint® Detangler Spray and a whole lot of brushing and combing, but we got the job done, and the girl was very sweet and patient. One more lice myth debunked.
There are a number of possible explanations for the low infestation rate among African-Americans. One factor is the difference in hair characteristics between Caucasian and African American children. Head lice have problems latching on to curly and kinky hair. In addition, African American hair is more elliptical than Caucasian children’s hair and head lice find it difficult to hold onto the elliptical hair. In Africa, where the percentage of children with head lice is higher, lice have adapted their claws to better grasp elliptical hair. Another explanation is that African Americans are more likely to use Vaseline, pomades, and hair gels. These products make the hair less hospitable to head lice.
So yes, it is a lot less likely for African-American children to get lice, but it does happen as we found out first hand. Anytime there is a head lice outbreak at a school or other social setting anyone who has been in close contact with the affected individual, no matter what their race, should carefully check the hair and scalp with a metal lice comb, to make sure none of the little critters have set up camp.
Irina Aleynikova, Lice Technician
Got Lice? Or Know Someone Who Does?
Posted on: July 9, 2012
Lice Lifters® provides one quick treatment and DONE! Our Triple Threat Treatment is the most efficient, effective way to treat head lice AND their eggs. As your partner in lice, we provide easy instructions on how to clean your house and teach you how to detect and prevent lice in the future.
By the time most families come to Lice Lifters® Treatment Center they have tried several treatments to get rid of their lice situation on their own. They have already done a tremendous amount of house cleaning. They have tried and re-tried the pesticide over-the-counter products and a variety of home remedies. Even after putting up a good fight most people find that they still haven’t conquered their head lice infestation. This leaves them very frustrated and desperate for their lice problem to be over – yesterday!
This is a common story that we hear from our clients. They come to us thinking that they are the only ones who have spent so much time and effort spinning their wheels only to find their lice situation unresolved. Here is a list of treatments that our clients have tried using to no avail:
- Rid
- Olive oil
- Nix
- Mayonnaise
- Vinegar
- Ovide Rx
- Listerine
- Ulesfia Rx
- Cetaphil
Live lice can and often will survive these “remedies”. Most of these treatments have no effect on the nits (lice eggs) even with multiple applications. The combs some treatments supply are an ineffective tool to use to comb out all the lice eggs and unless ALL the bugs are killed and ALL the eggs removed you could start over again at square one!
Call us first! We’re your lice solution!
This week we had a family of five come in to be treated for head lice. Upon their arrival, we asked mom if she completed any previous treatments. She said that the previous week they were unsuccessfully treated by a nitpicker. She performed a comb-out service “in the comfort of their home” on the mom, and her 3 children, as well as applied her lice solution to their heads.
She gave them no instructions, tools, or extra solution before she left. Three days later while the mom was bathing her 2 year old, she found three live adult lice. She called the nitpicker again, who said that she would come back to do another treatment. The nitpicker charged her additional fees to come back and “re-treat”. In total, the family was charged almost $1,000 to treat 4 people. When the mother found more live bugs a few days after the second treatment, she decided that the nitpicker could no longer help her family, and called us.
When the family arrived at Lice Lifters®, we checked them and the mom and dad were clear, but all three children still had nits and live bugs. For the 2 head checks, a LouseBuster™, two thorough comb-out treatments, The Nit Nanny® Lice Solution Treatment and a The Nit Nanny Treatment Kit mom spent $435. The family received our The Great Clean Up instructions, The Nit Nanny Solution Treatment schedule, education on lice, and the necessary products to complete the treatment. So, if the family found Lice Lifters first, it would have saved them a lot of money, aggravation, and time. We were very happy to help them and restore their peace of mind. After all, helping others is what we do best!
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Irina, Treatment Technician, Lice Lifters of Chadds Ford
It’s bad enough to find out you have head lice but when you finally get rid of them you fear they are still there. At Lice Lifters® we say the “lice are in your head instead of on it”. Once you have experienced lice whether it was on you or your kids you have a heightened sense of awareness. We often have moms call after they are treated because they feel “itchy”, think they see “something”, have been combing their children’s hair every day or continue their laundry and extensive house cleaning.
- It’s common to be itchy after being treated since the lice bites can take up to one week to heal
- No need to panic and check your kids everyday, our proven weekly follow up with a quick combing head check gives peace of mind in the future
- Lice are not living in your house! They can’t survive off of a human host for more than 24-36 hours. After treating with The Nit Nanny® Lice Solution Treatment the first time the house cleaning is done. Hallelujah!
The truth is that the Lice Lifters Triple Threat Treatment is thorough and successful, so no need to worry. Our reputation depends on it. Lice Lifters has many locations and is ready to help you. With thousands of satisfied clients I hope this helps you to get over lice being in your head instead of on it!
By, Ilene Steinberg, The Nit Nanny, CEO Lice Lifters Franchising, LLC
Since camp is less structured and kids tend to live in close quarters head lice spreads more rapidly in this environment. Most overnight camps do all-camp lice screenings on the first day. If your child has lice you must pick your child up from camp, get him or her treated on your own, and only return upon an inspection which must be nit free or camp will provide a lice treatment service for your child and you will incur a fee. Having camp deal with the situation is a great option! Keep in mind the rest of your family should also be checked.
Detecting lice on day one can save a camp from an outbreak. However, if a case is missed on day one (which is very possible since an early stage of lice is difficult to detect) it may not show up until week two or three. By that time there is usually more than one kid in the bunk with lice. So you see how this can become a big problem even if your camp is on top of the situation.
Lice Lifters has a pre-camp kit that will help to detect and start to treat lice before you leave for camp so you can have peace of mind when sending your children off for the summer.
Have a great lice free summer!
Ilene Steinberg, The Nit Nanny & CEO Lice Lifters Franchising
Posted on: May 11, 2012
School nurses are frustrated when parents assume that nurses give out the names of children with head lice. We know that school nurses are doing their best to help identify lice, and they want to get rid of it in your school as much as you do. What is most frustrating and detrimental in a lice outbreak, is, if the family with lice does not tell anyone ( keeping it a secret), including from the school nurse.
By not telling everyone that your child has lice, and clearly, he/she got it “somewhere”, you are putting all of your hard work and energy involved in treating your family at risk to be reinfested!. Know that you got lice from “someone” and may have shared it with someone too! Don’t blame the school nurse..take on the responsibility and check your child’s head weekly!
Shout it from the roof tops!
Only the Sweetest Kids Get Lice
Posted on: May 1, 2012
Who gets lice? Almost anyone with hair ¼ of an inch or longer is susceptible to getting head lice. How do we know that lice like sweet people? We’ll get to that in a bit. First some facts…
A person is only contagious with lice from a fertilized female louse. She is the one that lays nits (lice eggs). Nits represent future generations of an infestation.
What are Lice?
- A louse is one bug, lice are plural. Nits are the lice eggs
- Lice feed on human blood 5-6 times a day for a few hours at a time
- Lice are wingless bugs that range in size from as small as a pencil point to the size of a small ant. (2mm to 4mm)
- A fertile female louse can lay 3-5 waterproof, hard to remove nits 2 times a day
- Lice do not jump or fly, they only crawl with their 6 legs which have claws at the end designed to cling to the hair shaft
- Nits, once removed from the head are harmless
How you get head lice
- More than 90% of lice comes from head to head contact with an infested person (hair touching hair)
- Sharing items like brushes, hair accessories, dress up clothes, hats, or helmets
- Children working together in small spaces where heads touch
- Hugs (don’t give up hugging, just be proactive)
- Cloth seats in the movie theater, on a bus, train, or plane (unlikely though as only abut 2% of lice are from the environment)
So how do we know that only the sweetest kids get lice? At Lice Lifters Treatment Centers we have treated over a thousand of the cutest families. These families have the sweetest kids. That’s how we know only the sweetest kids get lice. So if your child ever asks “Why do I have lice?” you can say, “Because you are sweet. Lice only like the sweetest kids.” We also find that Moms are sweet enough to get Lice about 80% of the time but Dads only get it about 10% of the time!
Be proactive by doing weekly combing head checks on your sweet kids until college!
The Nit Nanny, CEO of Lice Lifters
Lice in the Bible
Posted on: April 13, 2012
Lice in the Bible
As Passover is upon us, we remember that lice is the 3rd plague (lice is called Kinem in Hebrew). As much as we would like to deny lice is an issue, the reality is that lice has been around as long as humans can remember. Lice appear in the Bible, they have been found in ancient tombs and have been noted throughout history.
In the story that is told during the Seder the Egyptian sorcerers were able to mimic some of the plagues proving that Moses’ G-d was not all-powerful. When it came to the 3rd plague of lice where G-d made lice from the dirt of the land the Egyptian sorcerers were unable to replicate the lice epidemic, recognizing the lice outbreak as the act of a superior power.
Today, we are dealing with the plague of super lice. Lice have many generations in a short period of time and they evolve quickly. Lice evolve to protect themselves against pesticide and chemical treatments. However, lice cannot grow resistant to the Triple Threat Treatment that Lice Lifters has developed.
Have an enjoyable Passover and a Happy Easter and do your weekly head checks until your kids go to college!
By, Ilene Steinberg, CEO Lice Lifters
The Great Lice Blindside
Posted on: April 11, 2012
It’s very common to want to know where and when you got lice. We treated a family in the treatment center today that just returned from Disney World. The mom was sure her family got lice on vacation. Just about every family that we treat is anxious to know how long they’ve had lice. They typically think that they’ve had it for a few days to maybe a week. When they find out the reality they feel blindsided!
By the time someone in a family is itchy it is likely they have had lice for a minimum of 2-3 weeks. At the first sign of itching, often mom will switch shampoos or come up with a good reason why they have an itchy scalp. Commonly, a visual head check may take place at this time as well. Without knowing what to look for nothing is found. So more itchy days go by and more family members or classmates are at risk. Them bam! A bug! Now it’s obvious why they were itchy.
The 2 kids in this sweet family we treated today had all stages of live lice and hundreds of nits. When we told mom and dad their kids had lice for 3-4 weeks they were blindsided. They had no idea that bugs were in their heads and going to town laying and hatching nits to their little hearts content. This happens too often. I wish I had video of this moment so I can replay it for the next family that gets blindsided so they know they are not the only lucky ones to get the lousy (pun intended) surprise.
How to reduce the blindside;
- Do weekly combing head checks
- If you find you have lice get safely and properly treated
- Communicate to school, friends, family, teams, babysitters, carpools, etc…
Be proactive, get educated and I hope your family is never a victim of The Great Lice Blindside!
Ilene Steinberg, CEO Lice Lifters
Lice Lifters 