Nit-Picking Advised In Lice War Parents Put Children At Risk When They Overuse Chemicals

Parents are spreading mayonnaise, Listerine and Vaseline on their children’s heads.

They’re dousing them in strong chemicals and kerosene, trying to kill the super-ninja lice they’ve heard about.

They’re bagging up stuffed animals. Doing laundry like detergent is going out of style. Bombing their homes and cars with chemicals. Throwing out furniture.

And regional health officials are cautioning parents to not go too far in their war against lice.

In Spokane, health officials recently formed a lice outreach group to try to teach people that more chemicals aren’t necessarily better.

“People are really, really spending a great deal of time and money and energy and emotional equilibrium on things that may not be very helpful,” said Carol Murphy, coordinator of health services for Spokane School District, who’s gearing up for a tough school year, lice-wise.

“The treatment can be worse than the condition. These are very potentially dangerous treatments.”

Like any bugs, lice may be growing resistant to chemicals, like the pesticide lindane. But some parents, thinking more is better, are leaving these chemicals on for hours instead of minutes and treating and re-treating anyone who lives in the home, health experts say.

“It’s always an issue,” Panhandle Health District nursing supervisor Marie Rau said of head lice in North Idaho.

Rau said she’d heard of parents using kerosene and gasoline to get rid of the lice, but she said flammable materials should never be used on children.

Vaseline works to “smother the little buggers,” and can be washed out with dish soap, she said.

“Head lice are a nuisance,” Rau said. “They’re not an emergency. It does gross people out, even us. Even we itch when we talk about it.”

Head lice live in human hair, with legs like grappler hooks that help them move easily from strand to strand. They do not jump or fly, but are passed along by head-to-head contact.

Adult lice are reddish-brown wingless insects, slightly bigger than a pencil point. They move quickly. When they lay eggs - and that takes a fertile female and a male - the nits are glued at an angle to the side of the hair shaft, near the scalp.

Bill Edstrom, an epidemiologist at Spokane’s health district, gets regular calls about lice.

The real solution to lice is nit-picking and careful combing, Edstrom said. People also need to realize that anyone can get lice.

“I’ve had a woman call and say she was put on Valium because she was hysterical about it,” he said. “I have so many upset and stressed-out parents.”

The National Pediculosis Association, a Massachusetts-based group that tackles lice and scabies, keeps a national reporting registry of people who’ve had bad reactions to the chemicals used to treat lice. Hundreds of reports have been made, including a 19-year-old who died after his room was sprayed with pesticides.

The association tries to caution people against using dangerous chemicals and to treat only those family members who actually have lice.

“It’s paranoia,” said Linda Menditto, operations director of the association. “It’s creepy, crawly; it’s on the child’s head. It’s the idea of having bugs on the head. People don’t like it.”

One Spokane mother treated her child for seven months for lice, but the kid really had dandruff. A Spokane health professional saw a woman who sprayed her child’s hair with Raid. A 6-year-old Oklahoma girl almost died last year after her mother’s boyfriend washed her hair with an agricultural-strength pesticide that sent her into cardiac arrest.

Cheryl, who doesn’t want her last name used, spent about $350 to get rid of lice. Her youngest daughter, 5, caught lice, probably in a Spokane-area summer school program, she said. The little girl started scratching, and Cheryl started looking, and then they went to the doctor, who found two live lice.

She cleaned her home, emptied linen closets, washed everything that she could. She treated her three children, herself and her husband with lindane, then with Rid shampoo and then with Nix. She drove about a half-hour to another town to buy the lice shampoos because she was embarrassed.

After a week, nits were spotted on the little girl’s head. Cheryl combed out about 30. So she bought 3 quarts of mayonnaise, slathered it on her family’s heads, then wrapped them all in shower caps and bandannas. The family slept in mayo for a week. It smelled like sulfur.

Her family has been pronounced nit-less, and she credits the mayonnaise.

But health officials warn that mayonnaise can breed bacteria and transmit food-borne illness if it drips into eyes or mouths. Vaseline can be a messy disaster. Listerine can burn.

Kerosene and heavy chemicals can be toxic.

“You comb,” Murphy said. “You comb consistently. You comb up to the point you’re no longer friends with your child. You comb daily, daily for one week after you see the last live lice or nit.”

Changed in the Spokane edition.

This sidebar appeared with the story: HEALTH TIPS The Spokane Regional Health District has published a new brochure on head lice. The district opens a new head-lice information telephone line Tuesday at 323-2847. Here are some lice facts and tips from the health district: Anyone with clean or dirty hair can get head lice. Head-to-head contact is the easiest way to spread lice. They also can be spread by using someone’s comb, brush, hat or bedding. A vacuum is a good way to clean up surface areas. Lice don’t jump or fly, but they are speedy crawlers. Pets don’t carry human lice. An itchy scalp is the most common symptom of lice. An over-the-counter lice treatment will kill most lice and nits, but you must remove the nits by combing or picking them out of the hair. Don’t panic or re-treat if you see live lice after treatment. Remove them. Lice live on human blood. They’ll die within 48 hours without it. Eggs hatch in about six days.