Mayonnaise treatment for lice

[deespoohbear]

I just took care of a pt who was infested with lice. And I do mean infested. Our infection control nurse recommended mayonnaise treatment for this patient. Applied the mayonnaise to the patient's hair, wrapped in saran wrap and left it on for 12 hours. Anyone ever have success with this treatment? I think I would rather use mayonnaise on someone (or myself) than that pesticide stuff available nowadays. Never have seen a lice infestion this bad. Patient also had fleas.

[Orca, ADN, ASN, RN]

We had a problem with repeated infestations with our daughter, and my wife used to get them from her (although I never got them for some reason). We bought a product called Nitmix from a company in the UK, and it worked wonderfully. It doesn't have the harsh chemicals of the lice shampoos and foams (and most of the over-the-counter ones don't work anyway).

One element is almond oil, which coats the lice and keeps them from running, making them easier to remove. The Nitmix itself puts a scent on the hair that keeps the lice from being attracted to that person. It has a shelf life of three years, so one order goes a long way. We had tried just about everything until we ran across this, and we haven't seen a head louse since.

If you're interested:

http://www.nitmix.com

I don't work for the company or make anything off their sales. This is just a good product that works, and it prevents lice from returning.

[RN4ustat, BSN, RN]

I live in a very small community and I have had the pleasure of doing headlice checks before. There is another nurse in town that thinks she is the school nurse. She is about as dumb as a stump, but she thinks she is the only one qualified to be a school nurse because she is a BSN. Well, she was doing teacher inservices a few weeks ago and she told the teachers that her kids had contracted headlice from the family cat and that she used Hartz 2-in-1 puppy shampoo on her kids because it was the exact same thing as RID or NIX. And the administration wonders why we can't get rid of headlice in some families..............HMMM. I have had parents that use kerosene on their kids and other families that were too lazy to do anything, so the kid didn't come back to school for 3 weeks. The teacher finally had to go get the kid. Another time, I was accosted by a parent at a basketball game because I sent her daughter home. The mother states "She didn't have lice, she had nits". The mayo treatment is not highly recommended by The National Pediculosis Association. They recommend mechanical removal with a lice comb in addition to whatever product the individual selects. Check out HEADLICE.ORG for further info.

[boggle, ASN, RN]

It's scarey to hear that the idea of using kerosene or gasoline on a kid's head is still around.

'''''''''failure to treat the kid with humane products,(and I guess HUMAN products instead of Hartz cat dip) , and failure to appropriately de- louse your house sounds pretty close to child abuse!

Cleaning the environment and picking off each and every nit is hell, it's time consuming, tedious, expensive, just awful hard work. But you've GOT to do it!!!

I swore it would be easier to just burn down the house and start over after our last lice experience!

Gee, guess I still have a sensitive nerve or two on the subjet =

[HISSYTHECAT]

I mentioned my boyfriends daughter...her mother put RAID in that child's hair. She said she heard the bugs explode. This is a child who was diagnozed with seizures. She fussed cause we put the lye soap in there and states that will cause her to have seizures. Can you believe that???

[APN-RN-MOM]

As an ex- school nurse, all I can say about getting rid of lice is "good luck." The real trick is combing out every single nit.(not an easy thing to do) I had parents using everything to get rid of the little critters, but then they didn't do the other things(washing coats, sheets, etc.) and the lice were back. It was alsmost useless to shampoo with NIX etc. unless you did everyone in the family. The truth is, that 25% of shcool chldren have lice at any given time you check. Then the parents are psycho, the teacheres are psycho, and I became psycho. I loved everything about being aschool nurse except for LICE. I still find myself scratching my head just thinking about it... I found the comment about mayonaise irritating a scalp with cuts etc. very interesting. What do you think harispray, gel, Nix, mousse, etc. does? In my practice now, I makesure the parents get a reallly good lice comb. I swear, it's your best bet.

[SmilingBluEyes]

Gosh I dread the day this happens to dd or me. We have the thickest, curliest hair on earth. And hers is down to her waist. TO cut it would BREAK MY HEART IN PIECES, it is in ringlets. And, To get all the nits out of our hair will be hell on earth. I pray not....homeschooling looking better all the time. Ds has not brought home lice yet, knock on wood. I don't know why not....so many kids have had to actually be suspended from school for nontreatment of lice over and over again. I can't count how many notes I have seen sent home, telling us a child has lice and to check; we sure have been lucky.

I have to ask, does his wearing tons of gel and temporary hair colors (which have the consistency of glue) keep em off or what? Or is it luck...cause two of the kids he sat near in school had these critters CHRONICALLY! My ds even said he could SEE them crawling on their heads YUCK! Anyhow, It is likely after this year, we will be homeschooling and the kids don't go to daycare, so maybe we will avoid these nasty things altogether.

I don't remember this being such a huge issue when I was in school; it is more prevalent or my imagination????

[sr moore, BSN, RN]

Our docs recommend olive oil, or a very thick hair gel like dippity do to suffocate, then you have to get the nits out. We did have a drug rep bring by some ovide samples for our patients to use. It worked very well, but chemicals......

[Robin61970]

Actually kids who wear hair spray and gels are less laikely to get head lice. The lice like a clean hair follicle to attach to or so my nurse said at the doctor's office. There are many home remedies...hairdresser I know says to use 1/3 cup dawn 1/3 cup vinegar.....it worked for a friend, but who knows? Also Teatree oil shampoo has an odor they supposedly don't like....

[HaYn~PrYnCs]

I have had to deal with that problem many times with four children, and it aint any fun. Through the trials of OTC drugs, none worked like avon's skin so soft bath oil spray. I am not an avon sales person, but feel that anyone who has to deal with this neverending problem, try it.

It has an eucalyptus scent. You can squeeze oil onto hair and massage it in hair. Make sure that all hair is covered (it drips onto clothes, so use a towel around the neck), leave on for about an hour or so, then comb through hair with bamboo comb or one of those nit comb that comes in the OTC kits. The alive lice absorb the oil and fatten up so its easy to come off. Majority of the nits come off as you comb through hair. Shampoo hair and towel dry, then manually search and pull out the remainding nits. I would suggest getting masking tape, and make a circle with the tape by connecting ends sticky side out. This is what I use to put those nits I pick out of hair with my fingers.

Your subjects hair will appear to be oily looking for about 2-3 days, this is also good too, because the smell repells the lice on things you may have missed. Check hair for nits every day until you feel confident you have terminated the problem.

Another tip...if you see your kids scratching, check it right away, that is an early warning sign, and helps to keep your house from getting too infested.

[2MagnoliaTrees]

I had this eons ago when I was in 7th grade. Mom had 6 children and never had any of the others come home with it. Someone tyold her to use kerosene. But they forgot to tell her JUST a few tablespoons and rub it in. She poured the kerosene on my head and my scalp started burning and my hair started falling out. Never had lice again but because Momsmoked I was worried that she'd light up and I'd go "POOF".

[whipping girl in 07, RN]

Whenever I hear the words "head lice" it conjures up two images:

1) In 4th grade I got sent home with head lice and my mom treated and combed my long hair with that little comb. Ouch! To this day she swears I just had dandruff but she did the treatment so I could go back to school.

2) I'll never forget the lady who showed up at our ER (when I was working admissions, long before my nursing career) with her four lovely children she wanted us to de-louse. No, she didn't want a Rx so she could get the medicine with her medicaid card, she wanted our ER to do the treatment and comb out all the kids hair (3 of which were little girls with long hair)!! She just didn't get it when the doc told her we didn't do that, and she threatened to go down the road to our competition!! :roll