Monday, June 3, 2013

Jeudi, 23 Mai 2013: Extermination

Alright, I've had it with the lice! This is the end of the end!!! I checked all of the kids and they ALL have lice!!! Even little Gregoire has them! I caught him scratching his head before his bath so I checked and sure enough was a full-grown adult crawling on his head. EW! EW! EW!!! Luckily, I only found two eggs on him. Baptiste has what looks like several dozen but the girls are completely riddled with them!!! Every strand of hair is covered with multiple eggs!!! SICK!!! SICK!!! 

When maman came home from work today I asked her to check my hair because my head itched. To add to the the horror, she found five eggs on my head!!! I am absolutely appalled!!! It's done! I have given those kids lice treatments every week for about 8 months now! I change their sheets at every possible opportunity! Obviously I made a mistake by not checking their hair every day. I'm an idiot!!! I just checked their hair last week though and I found maybe a few on the girls' heads. Clearly lice multiply fast! 

Maybe this was a wake-up call for me. I didn't do enough to prevent the lice infestation. But THIS IS IT!!! I've done so much research that if these new methods don't work, I'm out of options. Apparently, if contemporary lice shampoos don't work, it means that the lice have become evoluntionarily resistant to the mild pesticides. There are several natural choices once the Rid or Poux It are deemed pointless. 

1. Apply conditioner, olive oil, hair lotion, or mayo The thick, creamy substance suffocates the lice which breathe out of spiracles on their sides. The fat makes the nits easy to comb out as well.

2. Apply lavender, eucalyptus, rosemary, tea tree, or peppermint oil to the scalp. These are toxic to lice. The best thing to do is to mix one of the essential oils with the cream before you apply it to the hair. The poisonous oil you use speeds up respiration so that the lice will breathe in the cream faster, and therefore die sooner. This is useful because lice can shut off their respiration for a period of time. 

3. Rinse shampooed hair with vinegar--neat. The acid will kill off the little bugs. Comb through afterward. The only downfall to this method is that your hair smells awful for a few days afterward.

4. Hairspray! Lice hate it for some reason.

I combined all of these methods and used them on everyone in the house minus the parents who are pest free. I combed out two eggs in my hair earlier and according to maman and Krystle, I am devoid of lice--even a week later. As for the kids, I got all of the eggs off of Bapiste and Greg who only had a few and Lea who was completely infested before my treatment plan. Those three have shown no further signs of having lice. Camille however, is heading toward a haircut. I've done multiple treatments on her, using the lice's life cycle against themselves. Nothing seems to work. I've gotten rid of a lot of nits on her, but I'm still finding them in bunches all around her scalp everyday. If maman gives into her pleas and doesn't cut her hair, then the final option would be Ivermectin. Ivermectin is a mite preventative given to rabbits and small pet rodents. It's recently been approved as a lice treatment alternative in the U.S. If that won't work, then I'm afraid nothing will...

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