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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.

Head Lice Prevention Month

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September is Head Lice Prevention month, a good time to call attention to the facts of head lice as children go back to school—typically a peak period for the head-loving bugs. Once children start playing, hugging, and taking selfies with friends, and, if someone in the group has head lice, the bugs will spread. 

Parents often panic when they get the call from school that their child, or a child in class has head lice. The first thing we tell them is they didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did their child other than maybe hug or touch hair with someone who has head lice. The true facts about head lice can help diffuse parents fear and stress.

To help parents be informed and prepared, you can review the basics of head lice infestations, prevention, and treatment.

  1. Head lice have nothing to do with economic status or the cleanliness of the home. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Association of School Nurses are very clear on this.
  1. Head Lice don’t represent a health threat. They don’t carry or cause any diseases or illness other than itching. Again, health professionals are very clear on this. Lice are simply a nuisance.
  1. 98% of the time head lice only spread through head-to-head, contact. They cannot jump or fly. They can only live on a human scalp, and they cannot live anywhere else since they dehydrate and quickly become too weak to move. As a matter of fact, head lice do not want to leave the scalp at all; since they feed on human blood up to 6 times per day. That may be disgusting, but it’s true. Lice don’t want to be on your sofa, on stuffed animals or the carpet. The good news is, you don’t need to treat your home with lice-killing products. They are ineffective, pesticide-based and can be toxic. Simply wash any bedding, towels and clothing the child with head lice has had contact with in the last 48 hours, lint roll upholstered surfaces, and freeze brushes and hair accessories for 8 hours.
  1. Help prevent head lice by educating your child to avoid hair-to-hair and head-to-head contact. You can also prevent lice by keeping her hair pulled back in a braid, tight bun or short ponytail.
  1. Traditional pesticide-based lice products are no longer working! The most recent study, published in the Journal of Medical Entomology in 2016, found that 98 percent of head lice in 48 states are now immune to the pesticides used in traditional lice products. The most popular drugstore products are still pesticide-based.
  1. Head lice products do NOT kill all the lice eggs (sometimes called nits), and so, the 10-day process requires repeated applications and tedious nitpicking to get all the eggs out. Common reasons for at-home treatment failure is using the popular pesticide-based products or parents missing just a few tiny nits, which hatch, and the lice return.
  1. Traditional lice products often use pesticides, and most parents don’t realize that. Even if those products still worked, would parents really want to douse their child’s head in pesticides when there are safer, faster, more effective alternatives available? Not only are pesticides no longer effective, repeated use has been shown to cause behavioral issues.
  2. At Knoxville Lice Clinic, our professionals quickly and easily get rid of head lice.  The Headwinds Heat Treatment gets rid of lice in a single treatment. That’s right, one treatment, one hour and you are lice free! Parents love this ‘one and done’ option and are so relieved to have lice out of their life so quickly.  Our Saline Comb Outs take only 2 visits — generally an hour at the first visit and 30 minutes at the follow up.

“Prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Benjamin Franklin

Knowing the facts can go a long way toward reducing stress and anxiety about head lice.

Knoxville Lice Clinic is the exclusive provider of lice treatment using the Headwinds heat treatment device. It’s fast, non-toxic, and pesticide free. Our professional, certified head lice technicians are friendly and knowledgeable and will relieve all the stress and anxiety head lice may cause you and your family. Knoxville Lice Clinic also offers pesticide-free and effective do-it-yourself lice treatment solutions, along with lice prevention products.

Have a lice-free school year!

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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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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