What to Expect During a Treatment at Knoxville Lice Clinic

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So, you’ve tried all the home remedies and over-the-counter treatments, yet you still can’t get rid of those little bugs plaguing your child’s hair. Now you’ve got an appointment at Knoxville Lice Clinic which specializes in getting rid of lice. You’re relieved that the end of the itching is near, but anxious of what crazy treatment they’ll use on you. You’re not sure your 3-year-old can sit through another round of combing…

Does this sound familiar at all? Well, worry no more, for here’s exactly what to expect during treatment!

First, you’ll pull up to the clinic and chuckle to yourself at the bright green door and the poofy hats we wear (we don’t want to get lice either!). Fast-forward through the paperwork, and we take you back to one of our three treatment rooms. Then the “dreaded” treatment starts!

Huh, it’s not so bad! We always start by checking everyone’s head to make sure they have lice. We use a special comb and start searching the spots lice love the most. If nothing comes up at first, we’ll separate your hair into sections and comb through it all to make sure we don’t miss anything. If we find something, we make sure to look at it under a microscope to see if it’s lice. If we find nothing, then you’re in the clear! However, we’ll still ask you to sit and wait for your whole family to be checked before we let you leave.

If you do have lice, then we proceed with one of our three treatments. Our most popular is the full-service treatment that consists of the heat treatment, another combing, and an application of our Treatment Goop. We also offer a quicker, short-form version that skips the second hair combing. 

Oh no! What if your child is younger than 4 or can’t receive the heat treatment? No fear, because we also offer a no-heat saline treatment for little kiddos and those who can’t have the full-service or short-form treatment. *If you choose the saline treatment, we will spray your hair with some salty, lemony spray and go onto the combing.

If you choose to proceed with the full-service or short-form treatment, we’ll turn on our heat machines and use their elephant nose attachment to dry up any lice eggs on your head. This part takes about 30 minutes, but our kids’ tablets make it seem like a snap. Many people actually like this step, they say it feels like a warm head massage! And don’t worry, if it ever gets too warm, just tell us and we can take a short break.

After your hair has been thoroughly blown around or sprayed with saline spray, we repeat the combing step. If you choose the short-form treatment, we skip this step. But don’t worry, either way you will leave lice-free (any bugs or nits remaining will be dead, the combing is just cosmetic!). 

Now we’re almost there! Our last step is a clear, oily dimethicone goop that makes sure any remaining adult lice will get killed. Everyone will receive this goop, even if they didn’t have lice. However, if you came alone and don’t live with anyone else with lice, you can skip the goop if you had a clear head check!

Once everyone has been gooped and shower-capped, we’re all done! You did it! You are now lice-free. Just make sure to follow the at-home cleaning and prevention tips and you’ll be good to go. ☺

* Due to COVID-19 precautions, we will be offering only the Saline Treatment for the time being.

A Message about Covid-19 and Our Clinic

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Edit March 23, 2020

We have temporarily suspended in person services due to the Safer at Home edict put out by our mayor. In-person contact without social distancing, especially around a machine that blows air and germs, is currently not in the best interest of your family or our staff. We ask that you bear with us during this time.

We have created an online shop so you can still buy products and treat your families at home. As always, we are available to answer questions via phone, email, or Facebook message. Thank you for understanding!

 

– KLC staff

 

 

_________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Knoxville Lice Clinic is committed to helping families in need of lice removal amidst the challenges related to COVID-19.  We are open and available to support the health and well-being of our community.  We have made several changes to our practices in order to keep our customers and our employees safe.

Any employee who is sick is staying home and away from the clinic until completely healthy.  Some employees will continue to work from home by answering phone calls, emails and messages, scheduling appointments, and providing the world-class lice advice for which we are known.  If you talk to an employee who sounds a little under the weather, you can rest assured that they are not physically present at the clinic.  It is our way of being able to provide work hours to employees who must stay home.

We are screening every client on the phone and not taking appointments for anyone who is exhibiting any symptoms of illness.  We know this is frustrating to some who need our service, so we are offering product purchases to anyone in need of help.  We will take payment over the phone and bring the products to you in your car.  We also still ship products via priority mail.  All shipment orders are shipped within 24 hours.

We are letting clients know that they cannot bring in anyone without an appointment, other than a single caregiver with a client under 18 years old.  We are limiting our appointments to 4 people or less per family group appointment.

We are asking that clients all wear masks and wash their hands immediately upon entering the clinic.

We are spacing appointments out by a minimum of 30 minutes. This is so that we have one family in the clinic at a time, and also gives us time to completely sanitize all surfaces (high touch or not!) between every family.  If you are elderly or have any high risk medical condition, you can let us know when you make your appointment and we will make sure you have the first appointment of the day and you will have the clinic 100% to yourself and your clinician for the duration of your time with us.

Your clinician will wear a mask.  Your clinician will also be touching you with gloves only.

We have hand sanitizer dispensers on the walls for anyone to use.  We are washing our hands well and very often.  

We still offer snacks and drinks, but we are keeping those things sanitized, covered, and in the office, available by request.  We have put away the coloring books and crayon station for the kids and have out sanitizable toys only.  If your child likes to draw, we can provide paper and a couple crayons that have not been used by anyone for 5 days.

We run HEPA air filters and (weather-permitting), are opening windows to increase air circulation.

The situation surrounding the coronavirus/COVID-19 concerns is evolving rapidly, so we are treating this statement as a “living document” and will be updating our practices and precautions as necessary.  We are open to community suggestions for anything we may have missed!  We love our community and want to keep everyone safe.  We got into this business because we care.

Sincerely,  Knoxville Lice Clinic 

What’s Effective, Visual Head Lice Checks or Combing?

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Recently, we’ve had customers ask why we don’t do visual head lice checks in addition to our comb-out checking. The reason? Visual checks can miss a lot of things. The nits and lice are the same color if your hair is dyed and  It can be hard to spot the few eggs/nits that are laid so close to the scalp.  This is especially true if you have a light infestation.

In fact, a 2001 study showed that, “The average time until detection of the first louse was 57.0 seconds with the comb as compared to 116.4 seconds by direct visual examination. Diagnosis of louse infestation using a louse comb is four times more efficient than direct visual examination and twice as fast.”

While visual head lice checks are still better than no check at all, a lice infestation would have to be fairly advanced in order for it to be easily seen with the naked eye. Many summer camps, school programs, or day cares will use pencils or chopsticks to  inspect the scalp. This is still good! Any check is better than no check at all.

However, we go right to combing to see what the comb finds. This is a better use of both our time and your time. It helps us find lice and nits twice as fast! Then we can get you lice free and back to your day.

We sell our Terminator brand professional combs, so you can use what we use on your children at home! We have a tutorial video on how to do thorough comb outs, and we have an instruction sheet posted as well. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call (865) 245-5353!

Head lice and Halloween!

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Head lice is a huge concern during Halloween! Trying on costumes at the store, all the masks and wigs, sharing funny hats, these are all great ways to pass head lice around.

We recommend a few simple ways to prevent lice this spooky season:

  • Don’t try on head gear or costumes at the store. You never know who had that on right before you!
  • Keep costumes in a plastic bag for 48 hours or in the freezer for 8 hours before you try them on. That still gives you time to return them if they don’t fit, but you can kill any head lice that might be on them before you put it on yourself.
  • Don’t share costumes between people. Keep your costume on your child, with no switching back and forth.

Hopefully these tips will help you stay lice free! Let the scariest thing this fall be your costume, not the head lice on it.

Lice Treatment After Care Instructions

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Thank you for choosing Knoxville Lice Clinic!  Here are your lice treatment after care instructions.

For All Treatment Services

  • A head check with Treatment Goop application is not a lice treatment, it only tells if you have lice. If you have lice but did not get a Saline Comb-Out or Headwinds treatment, you have not been treated for lice. 
  • Treatment Goop must be washed out with our Clarifying Shampoo or dish detergent. It will often take more than one wash. If you miss any, that’s ok! It will not harm your hair or skin. 
  • If Treatment Goop gets on fabric, it might stain. Pretreat it with dish soap before washing.  If it still shows a spot after the dryer, wash it again.
  • If someone finds live bugs less than 3 weeks after a Headwinds treatment or Saline Follow-up, it is a re-infestation. If someone who did not get checked or treated finds live bugs, they had lice before the rest of the family was treated. 

Who Needs to Know

  • Everybody! Some specific people to inform are the schools, your friends, your child’s friends, after school programs, day cares, sports teams, clubs, and child care. 
  • If you saw family or went on a vacation with anybody, let them know. 
  • If you had your hair done recently, let the hairdresser know. 
  • We can call businesses, sports teams, schools, and day cares. Give us the information and we will make sure they are informed, with your identity left out. 
  • Do not let your children play with or sleep over at any friend or family member’s house until they have confirmed they are lice free. You will get lice again. 

For Short Form Headwinds Treatments

  • You will itch! When we dehydrate the nits, we dehydrate your scalp. Our Nutrient Conditioner will help. In addition, washing out the Treatment Goop can cause dryness and itching. 
  • We do not do any sort of comb out. This is your responsibility.
  • Nits do not ever fall off hair. They will remain on your head until you comb them out at home. 
  • The nits are dead, and you are lice free. 
  • There is no discounted recheck offered, but an appointment can be made for a comb-out at $50 per half-hour.
  • We do not offer a guarantee on our Short Form treatment. 

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Holiday Head Lice Checklist

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No one wants to deal with head lice, especially after a hectic and stressful holiday period!  Parents have enough on their plates with the travel, entertaining, shopping, and cleaning everything up after the New Year.  We put together this head lice checklist for preventing lice infestations after the holidays.

Unfortunately, the holidays can be a peak time for head lice, so it is important to be vigilant.  This is especially true if you traveled to spend time with other families or hosted other families in your home. Lice primarily spread through head-to-head contact, and children get lice more often than adults do because kids spend more time in close contact.

Whether you were the visitor or the visited, there are some steps you can take to ensure that you don’t send your child back to school with head lice.

  1. Get a professional lice screening. If there is a chance you or your children were exposed to head lice over the holidays, the best thing you can do for yourself and your peace of mind is get a professional head lice screening. We offer them for just $25, and if you do have head lice and choose to be treated at our clinic, that fee is waived. Head lice can be very difficult to diagnose, and false positives are very common. You do not want to get treated for head lice if you don’t have the bugs!
  1. Use preventative products. People tend to deal with head lice reactively—meaning we freak out when we find head lice in our children and try to get rid of the problem as fast as we can. That’s perfectly normal, but we now have products that can help to prevent head lice in the first place. Peppermint Spritz, Spearmint Conditioner (my personal favorite!), Peace Love Mint Preventive Headbands, Treatment Goop and Terminator Combs are available at our clinic or on our online store. Unlike most over-the-counter lice products, all Knoxville Lice Clinic products are safe and pesticide-free.

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How to Stay Lice Free in 2019 from Knoxville Lice Clinic

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For decades, the standard of care for head lice has focused on reactive treatment using pesticide-based products. “Head lice has been associated with poor hygiene or dirty homes and has had mortified parents treating the nuisance in secret, often to no avail,” said Jennifer Fribourg, owner of Knoxville Lice Clinic.

“That’s changing as the medical and educational communities have taken steps to bring head lice out of the darkness of fear and ignorance,” Jennifer Fribourg said. “Now we focus on education, prevention, and pesticide-free solutions when head lice are found.”

Indeed, the internet is full of homespun advice on how to treat head lice, urging parents to use everything from mayonnaise to kerosene to kill the bugs. Home remedies people recommend range from laughable to downright dangerous, and Knoxville Lice Clinic is bringing the latest science and medicine to the forefront of the battle against head lice.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that one in five children under 12 years old have head lice,” Jennifer Fribourg said, “and that it has nothing to do with cleanliness or hygiene. We can also tell you from experience that head lice don’t discriminate, and that people from all walks of life come to our clinic and leave lice-free.”

“We are also adamant about not using pesticide-based products that don’t work—products that can be worse than the condition they are trying to treat,” Jennifer said. “Studies published in medical journals have found that 98 percent of head lice in much of the world are now resistant to the pesticides used in traditional lice products, and these pesticides have been linked to behavioral and developmental problems in children.”

Preventive products include sprays, conditioners, and shampoos that can be used daily or weekly at bath time and act as a lice repellent. All of the products use essential oils and inert gels that contain no harmful chemicals.

To learn more or to schedule an appointment, email info@knoxvilleliceclinic.com, or call (865) 245-5353. 

We get lice, too!

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We deal with a lot of head lice in this job. Prevention is our best friend, and we head check each other constantly! Some of our favorite things to prevent lice are :

  • Our giant fluffy hats. Jennifer hand makes most of them so that all our hair is covered when we’re messing with people’s hair!
  • Lint rollers! We lint roll ourselves a LOT. Lice can’t hold to fabric very well, and this way we can be sure we don’t have lice on our clothes when we take our hats off.
  • Tight buns and braids. We keep our hair under the hats, but it’s easiest to prevent little strands from escaping if we have our hair pinned up.
  • Preventive spray! One of my coworkers does a little dance every day as she rains peppermint spray down over herself – and anyone standing nearby! It works though, she stays very lice free.
  • Head checks. We all have our paranoid moments. Usually, one of us will come in saying we itch and need a head check, and get teased about being paranoid during a good comb out. Then the next week, it’s that person’s turn to be scared!
  • Sometimes, we will Treatment Goop a client and send them home. It is important to us to stay lice free, and after a certain amount of bugs in a person’s hair, we will Treatment Goop a client and send them home to wash so they can come back without excess living bugs, and we can protect our employees. This is rare, but does occasionally happen.

 

Some of what we do is in our own lives. One of my coworkers came in with lice and thought she got it at work. When we checked her child to make sure he was lice free, he was much worse than mom! We do head checks on our families fairly often, just like we advise our clients to do. Head lice are a very easy thing to miss, unless you’re looking closely. Our college students tend to wear their hair up while on campus, and we all are a little wary of hugging people or sharing anything.

Because so many people have head lice, it is important to be careful where ever you are. As my coworker Sarah says, “Constant vigilance!”

 

 

What is a Cosmetic Comb-Out?

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Our Full Service Lice-Tech Heated Air Treatment comes with a cosmetic comb-out, but what exactly does that mean? 

A cosmetic comb-out is:

  • Cosmetic only! We remove most of the nits for a cleaner look.
  • Our clinicians can usually remove about 90-95% of nits on the head in that single visit. 
  • This means that if you have more nits, you will have more nits left behind. 
  • The remaining nits are dead, and cannot hatch. 
  • Lice lay eggs at the base of the hair, against the scalp. Our combs cannot get underneath some of them. 
  • As the hair grows, these nits will become visible, usually 10 days to a few weeks post treatment. 
  • If you have a large amount of nits, or are from a nit-free school district, we offer extra combing at a rate of $50 per 30 minutes past your appointment time.
  • For our Full Service Lice-Tech Treatment clients, we offer additional single-pass comb-outs during the first 30 days post treatment.

A cosmetic comb-out is not:

  • Not a traditional comb-out.
  • Traditional combing is not necessary because all of the remaining nits are dead.
  • Not going to end the itching.  Your bug bites and dry scalp cause the itching and will resolve with time.  This is true for all methods of lice removal.  We even wrote a blog post about it!

It’s Sports Season!

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It’s football season! Which means it’s also cheerleading and marching band season. I know teenagers in football, marching band, color guard, lacrosse, drumline, and cross country. Sports are great! Anything with a team gives children (and adults!) a sense of family, that tight friend group that welcomes you in and makes you belong.

Unfortunately, having people that close often leads to lice. Shared baseball helmets in Little League, volleyball team sleepovers, the swim team that lends brushes between girls. These are all great ways to share head lice. Even team pictures can have people close enough to share head lice. Once it finds its way onto a team, the only way to be really clear of it is to have everybody be lice free at the same time.

That’s where we come in. We can eradicate lice from your entire team in one weekend, often one day. Between head checks, our in-clinic treatments, and our DIY options, we can get the whole team, including coaches, back into practice and winning games without the distraction of an itchy head. Our Peppermint Spritz and Spearmint Conditioner helps keep you lice free, and buns and braids instead of pony tails will keep loose hair from a louse’s tiny claws. Overall, our head lice treatment will get you lice free and out the door in time for your next practice, and you won’t miss a single beat.