Mayonnaise treatment for lice

lisamcrn · Aug 29, 2002

Oh the hours I spent combing out my girls' super long hair. Going thru everyone every night for almost two months. Oh my god! YUCK YUCK. I really should of made them cut off their hair, but it's too beautiful and they were in tears when I suggested it.

I think what finally made the difference was using the otc crud and comb, then shampoo, then the mayonaise and comb and shampoo along with all the cleaning. Alone the comb or txs and cleaning didn't do it. I'll have nightmares tonight of lice.......yuck.

panda_181 · Aug 29, 2002

I read a remedy one time that my sister (also a nurse) says works. She lives in a place where there are a lot of isolated Native reserves and stuff and lice can be quite popular there. It's 1 part mineral oil with 1 part vinegar. You put that on their head, cover it with a plastic bag and I think you only have to leave it on for an hour. Then wash and brush everything out. This sounds a little better than the 12 hours of mayonnaise!

Amanda :)

adrienurse, LPN · Aug 29, 2002

But I bet it makes hair shiny and manageable

LPN & EMT-CT · Aug 29, 2002

Did they take the child to the DOC????

jschut, BSN, RN · Aug 29, 2002

When my children were younger, we always used the NIX shampoo and then combed the hair with a nit comb. Usually worked.

One summer, NOTHING worked! Our son would come home almost every week with head lice...it was awful! It was a while ago, and I can't remember what finally got rid of it, but I didn't use mayo.....maybe I should have. I've heard it works...but I've never used it.

colleen10 · Aug 29, 2002

Thankfully I've never had lice and never had to go through all of this. Big round of applause for all of you moms out there!!!

But I remember my grandmother telling me that when she was little they used to shave peoples heads to get rid of it, or comb through with a very fine tooth comb, or use gasoline.

I would not recommend the gasoline, but hey, they were on a farm and it was a different age.

deespoohbear · Aug 29, 2002

We called our local health department which was a big joke. Said it was out of their hands because the child was hospitalized. The whole family was infested, I am sure. Nothing we could do except treat the child and tell the rest of the family how to treat themselves and their home. What a mess. :eek: I have been checking my hair everyday since I had this pt, so far so good. Does anyone know how long I need to check my hair before I will be safe? My hair is short but it also thick, dark, and curly. I get the itchies just thinking about it. :stone

MollyJ · Aug 29, 2002

I'm a little surprised by the mayo recommendation.

I'm a former PHN and we recommended OTC or Rx pediculocide shampoo followed by complete nit removal ("Nitpicking") and "environmental" care including vacuuming floor and mattress, laundrying of bed clothes, pillows either need to be hung out on the line in bright sun light or placed in a warm drier; stuffed toys can be bagged in plastic for a week, combs can be soaked in the pediculocide; caps and hats need tx; and pillows kids lay on to watch TV need to be washed or treated. Nit removal with reshampooing at one week to kill newly hatched lice is key. Few parents who were scrupulous about nit removal and environmental care would experience re-infestation but I've seen it happen IF the environment wasn't covered.

Original poster doesn't mention if the infested one was a kid or adult. I'd bet that the patient is question is re-infested unless the environmental care was done, particularly since the original was so severe, which be-speaks long standing infestation. D/C plan should have included a follow up visit by a HHN or PHN to see if this severe infestation was taken care of.

The primary problem I see with the mayo treatment is that it takes a high degree of compliance on the treater and treatee's part. If this doesn't happen, the infestation doesn't go away. I can potentially see why mayo would work, but I've never read anything about the efficacy of the treatment, either.

BrandyBSN · Aug 29, 2002

Head is itching just reading this thread.

I'd probably be the mother to pull her kid out of school and just do the lessons and homework at home until her classmates parents were forced to delouse correctly.

Our school district has a policy that if a child is found with lice, they are immediately sent home, and not able to return until they have a "clean bill of hair health", and are checked by the school nurse and certified to be 100% Nit Free.

Head still itching... Yuck!

BrandyBSN

JailRN · Aug 29, 2002

lavendar oil --natural-, smells great, and works....

HISSYTHECAT · Aug 29, 2002

My boyfriends daughter and came to live with us a while back. She had lice for two years straight ( I am not kidding). Her mother lost custody of her becuase of this. They got her up for child abuse. She would come over to our house on Sunday and go back to her moms on friday. We had to do it all over. Plus me and my boyfriend had to do our hair. We found the solution. Lye Soap. It worked wanders. She used Rid so much that the bugs was immuned to it. We tried mayonnaise but was only told that they smother the bugs but not the eggs..

Next time try lye soap.

deespoohbear · Aug 29, 2002

This was a child and child protective services were notified D/T other issues besides the lice infestion. They were suppose to follow up on the kid and the family. We did contact our health department. Our health department in our county is a big joke. They may as well not exist. The patient did have Nix applied to their hair and combed with a fine tooth comb, before the mayo treatment. My guess is that the pt will be reinfested again because I don't think the family had any intention on following through. Our infection control nurse told the family about treating the whole house and the environment but I don't think anything sank in. Hopefully CPS will be able to accomplish something.