At Home Comb Outs

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We offer our product line for curbside pickup or shipped directly to your house! To order, visit our online store.  Every purchase comes with over the phone lice advice from one of our trained clinicians.

 

There are several reasons a family doesn’t want to get a full treatment. Our commitment to our community is to get and keep everyone lice free, and we are willing to do whatever to takes to achieve that. We sell everything that we use in our in-clinic services.

 

Here’s a quick run through for those of you at home. The comb out procedure is the same one that we use here, for both head checks and comb outs.

 

Basic Instructions

  • Divide hair into four portions and clip to keep it out of the way. Measure the middle part from the forehead above the nose to the middle of the neck, and side to side from ear to ear.
  • Start at the bottom of the head, right above the neck. Take down and comb portions of an inch at a time. Put the hair above it back in the clip so you won’t get it mixed up.  Comb using our Slippery Nit Saline Spray or dry.
  • This MUST be done every day. Try to go through the entire head. It will take between 15-30 minutes, depending on the size of the head.
  • The first day you apply goop is Day 1. Comb through the hair every day until you have had four comb-outs without finding a nit. On days 1, 10 and 20, use KLC Treatment Goop. This will kill anything that might have hatched from a missed nit. 

Things To Remember!!

  • The flat of the comb must touch the scalp. Lice lay eggs as close to the skin as possible, so you have to get as close as you can to the skin to get all the nits. 
  • Comb downwards, through the previous section. This ensures you won’t miss nits at the part lines. 
  • When you start the next section, make sure you get the part line. 
  • At the end, go over “hot spots” again (behind the ears, all along the hair line, the center part line). 

KLC Treatment Goop needs to cover every hair from root to tip. Make sure you cover the wispy hairs around the face and neck.  Wash out with KLC Clarifying Shampoo.

Pesticides, pregnancy, and protecting your children.

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Head lice is typically thought of to be a children’s problem, but did you know 80% of moms catch lice? Our moms are our safe place, and all those cuddles, hugs, bed sharing, and story time on mom’s lap means mom can catch lice pretty easily. Mom is also usually the one doing the hours and hours of combing, which can spread lice (momma, keep your hair under a shower cap when combing out nits!). But what do you do when you’re pregnant? Or if you have a small child with lice? The pesticides in most lice treatments have been linked to some pretty nasty stuff.

 

Our Headwinds device uses technology to dehydrate nits without chemicals. That makes it safe for pregnant mothers and children! Our dimethicone rinse kills everything crawling within 10 minutes, and is completely non-toxic. For children too young for our Headwinds treatment, dimethicone and combing is a great option that actually works. We are always willing to answer questions and go over comb out methods! Keeping your family safe is important to us. Our lice treatments can get you lice free without any of the risks associated with OTC or prescription treatments, and no combing at home!

 

Click here to book now, or here for more information on our procedures.

Lice Prevention

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There are many old wives tales concerning lice prevention, but we have your best options! We work with lice every day, and have some tips and tricks to avoid catching it yourself.

Wear your hair up! It takes THREE SECONDS for a louse to crawl from someone’s head to yours. This means a hug, picking up a child, selfies, or even standing close to people on public transportation is enough to catch lice. Every loose hair is an opportunity to a louse. Buns and braids will keep your hair tight to your head and prevent flyaways. If you have crazy curly or frizzy hair like me, some gel, mousse, or hairspray will help eliminate those escaping fuzzies.

Pinterest or YouTube are your friends. You can learn to do many simple hairstyles in only a few minutes!

While they don’t have to be this elaborate, any type of tight braid will reduce your chances of getting lice.

 

Peppermint is your new signature scent. Lice avoid peppermint, so we use our Peppermint Spritz to keep them away. Simply spray this on your hair before you leave the house to encourage lice to find a different place to live. Tea Tree Oil has been talked about a lot, but it doesn’t work anymore. Maybe at one time it helped, but now it will only cost an arm and a leg and leave your hair soft for the lice to happily cavort around in.

Hair cuts are important! Everybody thinks they should cut their hair, but you don’t have to go that route. In fact, for women, hair should be at least shoulder length so you can pin it up appropriately. For men, a buzz cut is not enough. Lice can live in an eighth of an inch of hair! If you want to be lice free, you need to shave your head to the scalp and rock that Mr. Clean shiny head bald.

My personal favorite trick is simple: hoodies. I wear a jacket with a hood almost everywhere, so when I sit on an upholstered seat, I can flip the hood up to cover my hair. Lice can fall off heads and cling to fabric while they wait for an unsuspecting victim. Movies theaters, classrooms, and airplanes are my most feared seating right now. The hood over my hair gives me peace of mind that I am protecting myself.

 

I hope this has educated you on lice prevention! If you got itchy reading this, that’s normal. If you think you need a head check, please give us a call or email! We love telling people they’re lice free and sending them back into the sunshine. If you do have lice, we can get you lice free quickly and completely. Our goal is to get and keep our community lice free, and we are more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

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Differently Abled and Lice Treatment

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Lice is a huge problem for every family, but differently abled families have different concerns. Since we opened, we’ve had several new experiences and our staff has made each person comfortable while we got rid of their lice.

For our non-verbal clients, we explain the procedure and book the appointment via text. They are able to communicate with our clinician using texting on their phone without a problem.

Our sensory clients, or those who are non-verbal and too young to text, generally play on a tablet during treatment. We provide Amazon Kindles that are child locked to age appropriate games. Parents, guardians, or siblings are encouraged to stay close by and talk or hold hands with them while we work together to make sure treatment is as fast and comfortable as possible. We take as many breaks as the client needs. If a heat treatment is too much, we transition right into a comb out and teach the parents or guardians how to do it at home, for maximum success.

For infants or toddlers, we generally let a parent or guardian hold them on their lap during a head check or comb out. They feel safe on someone’s lap, and we are able to do our job quickly and completely without anyone having a melt down.

Our parking lot has a handicapped space, and none of our furniture is bolted down. We can adjust our clinic to your needs, ensuring you get the best possible environment.

 

Our main goal is to get and keep our community here in Tennessee lice free, and we are willing to do whatever it takes to fit the needs of that community. If you have a disability, or any general concerns about you or your loved ones, please call us and let us know.

Do Lice Letters and No-Nit Policies Work?

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They are two of the most common questions among frustrated parents; why don’t schools send lice letters home, and why are students with lice allowed in school?  While some school districts in East Tennessee continue to send students home, as well as notify other parents, when lice infestations are discovered within the classroom, many area districts have changed their policies when it comes to head lice.  According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), students diagnosed with live head lice do not need to be sent home early from school, and both the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) advocate that “no-nit” policies should be discontinued.  When a child gets head lice, parent frustration is understandable; dealing with head lice can be overwhelming.  But there are numerous reasons why no-nit policies and letters home ultimately make no difference when it comes to preventing head lice infestations.

In order to identify head lice infestations in school, all students would need to be screened on a regular basis, and most, if not all, schools simply do not have the staff or resources to dedicate to frequent screenings.  Routine screenings would be necessary because not all students with lice infestations are symptomatic.  1 in 20 children have head lice at any given time, and of those children only 40% experience the tell-tale itch, which is an allergic reaction to the saliva from head lice.  So while the school may identify some children with lice, it’s likely there are others in school with active infestations who show no obvious symptoms.

Early on in an infestation lice and eggs are often missed, especially when only a visual screening is conducted.  A female louse lays approximately 3-5 eggs per day, and eggs take another 7-10 days before hatching, so an infestation may not be obvious one week, but much easier to spot the following week.

Even if schools send letters home encouraging parents to check their children for head lice, many parents do not know what to look for or how to identify head lice.  Debris, dandruff, and hair product are often mistaken for lice eggs.  Actual viable lice eggs, which are grayish-brown and close to the scalp, are often missed upon visual inspection, and are difficult to see in darker hair.  Parents may miss lice infestations on their own child, and send them back into the school setting untreated.

Lice egg on hair shaft

So what are parents to do?  A parents best defense against head lice is to conduct routine screenings at home, because lice letter or not, there are always children in school with head lice.  Effective screenings require just a few simple tools.  Parents are encouraged to invest in a good lice comb, like the Terminator Comb carried by Knoxville Lice Clinic.  Parents should comb the hair behind the ears, at the nape of the neck, and at the crown. Start at the scalp and comb to the ends of the hair shaft looking for small grayish-brown eggs, or live lice.  For parents who want to be absolutely sure, Knoxville Lice Clinic provides screenings and instruction.  Lice doesn’t have to be overwhelming, and routine at-home screenings are one of a parent’s best defense against the continued spread of head lice. We also suggest wearing hair in buns or braids to give lice fewer chances to cross over, and avoiding selfies or sharing brushes, hats, and coats, as all can spread lice. Our Peppermint Spritz encourages lice to find another head to land on, and it is a good addition to your morning routine.

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Pets and head lice

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We get a lot of people asking about their pets and head lice. Don’t worry, your pet cannot get head lice! Head lice are a completely human problem. Dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, horses, or any other member of the animal kingdom: none of them can catch lice. Your fur babies are safe 🙂

Lice only live on humans, they aren’t found anywhere in the world except on people’s heads. That’s part of why it is always “lice season.” Those tiny monsters are passed from person to person around your community forever. Head lice have certain requirements to survive, which include a human food source, as well as a certain temperature and humidity to hatch eggs and support the newly hatched lice. Your pet can’t provide these things, so lice won’t live there. Thank goodness! Can you imagine brushing a sheepdog with a nit comb?

Once your family has been professionally treated and your laundry is done, you are all done! You can go ahead and love on your dog or cat as much as you want, and know that you can’t catch lice from your pet.

Lice Treatment Myths 101

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We get a lot of people on Facebook asking about lice treatments, and there is a lot of misinformation on the internet! Here are some myths I’ve seen lately:

  • Listerene – doesn’t help. You’ll smell minty fresh, but it dries out your scalp and won’t kill many hatched lice.
  • Mayonnaise – while this a great hair moisturizing treatment, it won’t kill anything.
  • Olive/coconut oil – you’ll have shiny hair, but it doesn’t kill anything.
  • Saran Wrap over any of the above – keeping Saran Wrap over mayo or oil overnight is uncomfortable and can ruin your sheets, but won’t kill anything on your head.
  • Rid/Nix/prescriptions – include harmful pesticides and only kill unevolved lice (not “super lice”).
  • Kerosene – this one is the most dangerous. Not only will this not kill lice, but it can easily set on fire and cause permanent damage or death to you and your loved ones.

The only real way to get rid of lice without our nit killer is to comb out every single nit. This can take hours of work every day for weeks. Between work, kids in school, extra curricular activities, and the inability to properly comb out your own head, this means a simple lice problem can last for months and interfere with every aspect of your life.

Our Headwinds device will leave you free to live your lice-free life. Feel free to check out other sections of our site to learn more! We are also on Facebook, Instagram, and answer emails and phone calls within 24 hours. We are committed to getting and keeping our community lice free.

Over 100 Heat Treatments given in just two months!

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We’ve been open for two months now, and business is booming! Over one hundred heat treatments treatments have been performed, and several hundred head checks as well. Head lice are out in full force in Knoxville! A few highlights are:

  • The family who showed me pictures of their pet fox.
  • The family on vacation who brought in everyone in the cabin. We had three generations of people in our office and helped nine people that Saturday.
  • Two different families evacuating from Irma who can go home lice free.
  •  The eight year old who said she wanted lice again because she loves the treatment so much.
  • Several families who had been struggling with lice for years and walked out free from lice.

It is truly an honor to be able to help so many people and their families. When people walk in, they’re in crisis. We can fix that. The relief on peoples’ faces when they realize the problem is over is worth so much to all of us who work here.

We look forward to meeting and treating your family! Come on in, let us make your day better.

Child with shampoo suds in hair and on face

Kerosene for Head Lice?

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As I’ve been getting ready to open, I’ve been striking up conversations all over town — about Lice!  More than just a couple of folks I’ve talked with lately have shared a family recipe including the use of kerosene as a major ingredient in a home lice remedy.  This is a very, very bad idea.

Please do not use kerosene on yourself or on your children!

  • Kerosene is extremely toxic to lung tissue.
  • Kerosene damages mucous membranes on contact.  Delicate eyes and mouths are located on precious heads — a drip of kerosene can cause lasting, permanent damage.
  • Kerosene can cause chemical burns on skin.  It causes “defatting” of the skin, and painful irritation.
  • A spark could cause a horrendous accident leading to severe burns or death.

Here is a link to a short and very informative article on kerosene poisoning: Kerosene Poisoning – NY Times Health Guide

There are better, more effective and safer ways to get rid of head lice.  Knoxville Lice Clinic has non-toxic, effective solutions.  We can do a thorough head check to see if you need any treatment at all (because sometimes it isn’t lice).  We have solutions starting at $25 for a do it yourself, dimethicone home treatment, on up to $185 for our signature 3-step heat treatment that takes care of it all, very safely, in a single 60-90 minute sitting — once and done!

We are close by in Knoxville.  We plan to open on July 15th.