Question:
News from our deer camp. Just days before the Nov. 1st opening in Texas
several of our group ventured out. One came back with (had?) LICE! One
of the older members of the group doused his hair with kerosene claiming
"all was well." And it was. Although we didn't let him smoke for a
while.......
Ok. Big question of the day. What to do about lice? Is Kerosene the
recommended method? Any others? Store bought brands run high $$$.
Surely, there is a simpler cheaper method than what Eckerds sells. What
did the boys in the civil war do about the problem? Other than race them
and bet on them......
Answer:
Well, I'm neither a doctor nor a biologist, but lice are one thing I've had
a lot of experience with from my time on the school health team of a county
health department.
There's basically three kinds of lice. The most common are head lice which
is what you seem to be talking about above. The most commonly *known* are
crab lice which is where the match and ice pick jokes come in. The least
common are body lice. This is in the U.S., other areas of the world may be
different.
From what I've seen of head lice I'd have a difficult time believing he
went out in the woods and just picked up a passel of them somewhere if they
truly are head lice. Bird lice maybe? If they were head lice then he very
likely had them already and first *noticed* them when he was in the woods.
Head lice are very communicable and are no respecters of class or bodily
hygiene. They damn sure can stir up a controversy though. Hell, I've even
had a woman right to the governor of Florida because I once sent her child
home with head lice and damned if we didn't get a call from Tallahassee
about it too.
>Ok. Big question of the day. What to do about lice? Is Kerosene the
>recommended method? Any others? Store bought brands run high $$$.
>Surely, there is a simpler cheaper method than what Eckerds sells. What
>did the boys in the civil war do about the problem? Other than race them
>and bet on them......
There is a very mild chance that head lice can communicate diseases like
typhus (emphasize very mild chance), but they really are not anything to
get excited about. They're a lot easier to get rid of than cockroaches in
the house and much less of a nuisance too. What it takes is an basic
understanding of their biology and a little diligence in getting rid of
them.
I've seen folks rid themselves of head lice by nothing more than thoroughly
washing their hair every day with shampoo and using conditioner.
Kerosene will work, but it'll leave you smelling for days. It's a fire
hazard though and rough on the skin.
Shaving all of your hair off will work too, but that's a bit extreme.
I most definitely *don't* recommend using any of the prescription
medications such as "Quell" that contain mercury compounds. They're not
necessary and there is a danger of skin absorption of the mercury.
Your best bet is to use one of the over-the-counter products with
pyrethrins as the active ingredients. They're fairly inexpensive and easy
to use with a very low toxicity. The only brand I can recall just now is
"Rid", but there are several others. I think Wal Mart has a brand that's
pretty cheap as well. I've seen folks mix drugstore sulphur into their
shampoo and use that, but whether it was the brimstone or the shampoo that
actually did the trick, I don't know.
There are basically two stages of head lice growth that must be dealt with
to successfully rid yourself of them, the nits or eggs that are attached to
the hair shafts of your scalp and the adult lice which are free roaming.
Eliminating the adults is as easy as thoroughly washing your hair with lots
of shampoo and thoroughly rinsing it all out. The only problem is that
approximately seven days later the nits will hatch and you'll have a whole
new crop to deal with. If you wash your hair every day like I do (I have
very fine textured blonde hair) that alone may take care of the problem.
Getting a lice nit comb (a very fine toothed comb) and completely combing
*all* of the scalp hair will probably do the trick as well. Do this while
the hair is wet and use creme rinse in the hair while combing to make this
as ouchless as possible. I definitely would not try to use a nit comb on
dry hair. You could just use the pyrethrin based lice shampoo and not
bother with any of the above. It is *important* to follow the label
directions and shampoo again seven days after the first time.
Where a great many people have problems in getting rid of lice is that they
don't treat the living areas that lice also get into. When someone in the
house gets lice then *all* of their bedding needs to be cleaned. Their
hats, coats, any laundry that hasn't been washed recently and that kind of
thing. No need for strong chemicals or poisons, just a thorough washing
with detergent will do. Couches, mattresses, chairs and any furniture they
sit or lie on needs to be sprayed. A simple water based bug spray like
"Rid A Bug" will do. Heck, if you vacuum it first even Lysol will probably
work. A lot of folks don't do this or do an inadequate job and end up
reinfesting the head that they just deinfested. I used to see some
children who'd come back to school time and time again with fresh
infestations because the parents just could not or would not grasp this
simple concept. And time and time again I'd have to send them home again
with the note saying "do not send back to school until lice problem
treated".
Compared to other pests like cockroaches, head lice are dead simple to get
rid of. Where the real problem lies is the social stigma they carry and
boy do they carry it. Send a prominent local persons child home with head
lice and it will hit the fan before you can even get back to the office.
Not that is has anything to do with the original question, but it was a
case of head lice that caused me to realize that I had no business in
dealing with children's social service cases. If you can't maintain a
professional emotional detachment then you're in the wrong business.
