SD has got head lice advice
:jawdrop:
Hey everyone
So here's my situation :
BM is a organic farming psychopath that I have had to deal with for the past 6-7 years. She never cleans, washes or bathes her daughter who has just turned 12.
However she seems to have been trying to look a bit more decent since her now fiance has moved in with his two other children.
This whole summer BM had decided to just book SD into four camps so we were not allocated any time until this weekend. BM never informs us of anything ever to do with the child's health, school or activities.
So during the summer my hubby and I decided to take a vacation to Europe to celebrate being in my last semester of my degree.
We booked back to be back here for this weekend until Friday morning five hours before we were going to get her the daughter write DH saying she had head lice but they think they have gotten most of the live ones out.
Well DH immediately cancels the visitation and sends a email to them saying that we won't have her down until she is free of them. My hubby has long hair aswell so he doesn't want them and he knows how much I hate lice aswell.
My problem is this ;
1. How can we be sure that she is free of them before picking her up, I almost feel like I want a doctor or nurse to make sure before we Drive two hours to only find out in the car she still has them.
2. I have personally gone through it three times and it was awful it took me so long to get rid of them and I don't have anyone like my mother to help if I were to get them again.my husband and i both work and neither of us have our mothers living in the same country.
3. I spend a extortionate amount of money on my hair every month but it's the only thing i spend money on.so I would absolutely loose the plot if I got head lice in my final semester when I have no time at all running on 2-4 hours sleep each night with work and school and assignments and exams.
4. They take so long in cycle to actually get rid of I'm worried that my husband will give in and have her down when they are not gone. And I don't control my husband to say no hugging and I definitely can't really control the lice from jumping from her head to mine his what can I do? I don't know if he will give in and say she can come down in the next couple of weekends or what but I just feel like I'm really done and over it all and if he was to want to have her come down I may very well up and leave and never come back. I hate head lice and I don't want them in my house on my stuff or anywhere near us.
I honestly don't have the mental strength to even let this one go to me it will just be the final nail in the coffin of it that I will just request if I can pay for a hotel for them or something.
I have had the worst two years with his daughter lying and her mother causing all kinds of trouble across the board that it's just ticked me right off that they have known about this for more than a week and only decide to tell us hours before we are to drive and get her.
I'm over the double standard, we can't miss a weekend, but BM can cancel arrange and do whatever she pleases with our time I'm done. I had awful summer with University then the death of two loved ones in my home country and more negative psychopathic behavior from SD mother I'm at the end of my rope and we had a short vacation on the account that we were only given these last two weekends of the summer, we had open tickets and could have stayed much longer but instead raced home and bought groceries and cleaned and got everything ready to only be told last minute.
4. The BM and the fiance have the two other kids that now live with SD and BM so if Im guessing the other two kids also have lice and will just be going around and around.
Sorry for the long vent.
Also to anyone who says you should sort it out yourself for the child- Firstly I don't want to as she got them from people we didn't want her seeing and SD decided to anyway and two she absolutely refuses to tye her hair back and is absolutely drama queen if I was to brush her hair even softly, she refuses. I am mixed race and my hair is extremely extremely hard if not impossible to brush let alone use a lice comb. I also spend a tonne on weaves and wigs to switch each month. So it would be extremely hard for me to do this by myself when DH has no idea what I deal with my hair lol.
Advice would be much appreciated
Thank you all and please no hate! It is just like if someone was expecting you to be okay with bringing their pet with fleas over to your house near your cat or dog and expect you to treat their pets fleas and possibly infect your animals.
Thank you hun for your
Thank you hun for your support!!
Of course I feel bad but for SD she has super straight soft hair unlike me!!
You have my sympathies. I
You have my sympathies. I wish I had advice, but we're suffering the same thing. Both SD12 & SD10 have had nits constantly for over five years... We have them EWe and treat them with a one-time treatment on the Friday night designed to kill everything in their hair, and then wash all bedding, towels, clothes etc when they leave on the Sunday evening. BM denies they have nits (even though we have photos & even video of nits crawling out of their hair) and tells them we are lieing to them as its 'just dandruff'. She refuses to wash their clothes / change bedding when they are with us as she goes out from the minute she drops them off to when she arrives home (often after we have pulled up and sat in her driveway). She has even told SD10's school that we are 'abusing' her by checking for nits every weekend!! We've tried doctors and three sets of social services (as there are other issues with low level neglect and emotional abuse), but we've been told they don't care and won't get involved unless she's stubbing cigarettes out on their arms...
We just carry on with the routine and wish for the day they might not have them anymore. So very, very tired of it.
Your skids are exactly why
Your skids are exactly why there are now strains of super lice that laugh at the traditional OTC treatments.
Time to shave some kid heads and send them back to BM without any hair. If BM won't do her duty then the kids can be bald.
Agreed. But they arrive late
Agreed.
But they arrive late on a Friday as DH can't get them till he finishes work, it's a long drive to ours, and they're starving (because, according to her, why should she spend her money feeding them after school when they're about to be on dad's time?). We couldn't get to treating them till 9pm and then they wouldn't be in bed till 11pm - bearing in mind the youngest is dead on her feet by the time she arrives so it's a struggle to get anything done. We tried the smothering / combing, but they couldn't cope with being up so late, so the otc treatment became the only option. Also, if we waited till Saturday morning we'd have to strip their bedding and towels from the Friday night and wash them and dry them only to have to do it all again on Sunday after they've gone home. Honestly the exhaustion week after week was killing us. Blame BM who refuses to do the necessary smothering / combing in the week (DH has repeatedly said to her that he's happy to do his part, but if she won't clean the house & treat them in the week then it's a losing battle).
DH won't consider not having them until she clears it up, so not much else I can do.
Bleach (hair bleach)
Bleach the everliving crap out of her hair and dye it a fun color of her choice. I don't care how old she is. It's the only thing that kills all the lice and eggs and prevents them from coming back. We had to do this with both of my SDs and they haven't had lice since.
Typically, if you dye your hair the lice can't stick their eggs to it.
My advice and it's what I got
My advice and it's what I got from the doctor is leaving it on for 10 mins won't do crap. Leave it on all night long under a shower cap.
We had to deal with lice when
We had to deal with lice when SS-24 was about 8yo. The kid has very course thick hair. It was hell.
The key for us was to follow the directions on the RID package exactly. Apply the treatment, comb out the dead lice and nits (egg sacks) from the hair with the lice comb, and reapply on schedule when any remaining nits hatch but before the new lice can lay eggs of their own.
Lice went through SS's school a few times that year.
First, don't assume that her
First, don't assume that her coming to visit is automatically going to give you and your DH lice as well.
My SDs had lice on and off for 2+ years and me and DH never got it. We were a bit cautious, but not overly so. They of course used their own towels, and brushes, and slept in their own beds. They would sit on the couch still, but not often, and DH and I didn't often sit on there either. If we hugged them we were sure to not touch heads and to make it a quick hug.
Second, lice these days can't be killed with the regular stuff you can buy at the store. There are superbugs now that need a prescription treatment to kill them.
Good luck!
I've never gotten lice when
I've never gotten lice when my skids had it (twice) and neither did my DH or my own kids, and skids live with us.
Put tea tree oil in your hair, it repels lice. There are also a few detangling sprays you can use to repel them also. One that I know of is Boo something, the other is Fairytale.
We always had luck with the lice stuff you find in pharmacies, but I know others haven't.
If you are super worried, bring SD to a hotel for the weekend (you could cut out the long drive if you did). You can also find a professional to de-louse her and your and DH if it comes to that.
Hey BM this is DH--Its an
Hey BM this is DH--Its an accident, I made a mistake about the dates and I have to give UP my two visits as scheduled, sorry and I will resume upon my return on such and such. I cant change this...uhhhhhh,,sorry again.
"visitation is not mandatory and things do come up which may prevent" kinda like BM and her shenanigans what ever shenanigans she has done"
JMO
Tips for avoiding head
Tips for avoiding head lice.
I found this tip when a friend reported her kids were at a party and possibly exposed (we had not seen the friend in weeks, nor were planning to) but she asked for my advise and I looked all over online and found this one tip:
Paul Mitchel Tee Tree shampoo, from the reports: LICE HATE IT
They won't attach because of the tea tree oil, so I bough it. used it all the time, then there was an outbreak and one of the kids came home with it (refuses to use my shampoo because it smells "minty")
She came home with it the day before a LONG vacation, including a 14 hour dive in the car with everyone.
BUT
No one got it, everyone in the family used the tree Tea shampoo regularly and never got the lice.
I swear by the stuff, it smells, its pricey but if it keeps lice off my kids and me, its worth using regularly.
A flat iron, heated to 450
A flat iron, heated to 450 will burn them and the eggs. Then shampoo, dry and flat iron again.
I think I'm still in favor of
I think I'm still in favor of shaving the heads of multiple lice offenders.
Unfortunately
You have to keep just poisoning there hair and changing there bedding all the time. My SD had them for years. Seem like all we ever done was stand in the bathroom doing her hair. I used to joke that they where her pets that she was born with them because she had them from such a young age right until she went to high school then they just disappeared. But they where never passed on to me and her father. It was just my SD who always had them. We had no idea why she kept getting infected weather it was the school or she just kept getting them from her mothers. We never really found out why she kept getting lice. Why we couldnt get rid of it.