Head lice treatments in US are failing

So I definitely lost that argument due to my relatively low status - husband - vs my wife’s superior status - wife. Not that Im complaining - rather Im whingeing. For some reason she gave me the job of combing out the hair - which took about 1.5 hours per head.

I do take your point, but after 1.5 hours combing through a 4 year olds head I thought maybe we could just embrace the shaming and treat it like a gesture of defiance against the patriarchy. But as I said, this particularly low status patriarch got overruled.

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Um, no. O’Conner was abused by her mother and for a year or more when she was in a Magdalen asylum. It has shit to do with her hair cut.

[ETA] also, what @gadgetgirl02 said.

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After a while of searching for nits, it’s amazing how much better you get at seeing them. There is a lot of stuff in everyone’s hair that is about the same size as a nit - loose skin particles, lint bits from towels, and so on, but the time quickly comes when the particular shape of them gets imprinted in your brain and you can tell them from anything else.

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You answered your own question! :slight_smile:

School… where lice-riddled kids rub up against many other kids. Not to mention multi-kid outdoor activities.

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Exactly my point. I think she wanted short hair. I had no idea she had been abused by anybody. Just that she had chosen to have short hair.

Yeah, I suffered though lice multiple times as a kid and it took forever to go through my super thick hair with that tiny comb even when it was short. I already hated having short hair.

Shaving my head would have been way more traumatizing. I wouldn’t have voluntarily left the house for months, I would have cried for days. Hats would not be enough to calm me down.

Last time I caught them was over the summer in high school from some younger cousins. I had just grown out my hair the year before. I don’t know anything that could have gotten me to even cut it then. I actually haven’t cut it any shorter since, mid chest level.

I would still cry for days if I had to shave my head, although I’m adult enough now to accept it if there were no alternative. And I could theoretically afford a real wig now.

Actually my male partner might cry a little if he had to shave his head, he hasn’t cut it, except to let me trim the ends, since he was 17.

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Wish I didn’t have that imprint, but yes. I actually used a magnifying glass as well.

I’m not sure how you connected that with trauma or what point you were attempting to make. And she’s not even the only women to sport short/shaved heads, either. Your comment just didn’t make a lick of sense and had nothing to do with whatever point you were making.

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School is why they get lice more often?

Is this tendency for lice to resist treatment also true of pubic lice?

Asking for a friend. Ahem.

Can confirm. Rubbing alcohol kills lice but not nits. You have to wear a bag on top of your head for an hour or two, during which time you and your friends need to avoid smoking cigarettes or other. Did it once. Not recommended. Especially not recommended for pubic lice.

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Closer (and more continual) proximity to many others. Schools are petri dishes.

:slight_smile:

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We had schools when i was a kid. 30:1 vs todays 20:1 classrooms too

It’s right there in the article : “Overexposure to insecticides has bred resistance in the parasites, making it harder than ever to treat infestation.” When I was a kid and there were lice in school, the whole class doused it’s heads in anti-lice-poison => boom, infestation stopped in it’s tracks. Doesn’t work anymore.

It’s annoying. But relatively harmless. At least they don’t spread nasty diseases like fleas. My daughter averages about twice a year since she went to school. Combing is the only thing that helps (apart from shaving, which I can’t do to my daughter. It took her years to grow this long hair.

So Combing it is, three weeks straight every morning and evening. (We’re rather good at it by now, takes us 10 minutes tops.)

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Your homework assignment: Determine if there is a meaningful correlation between student:teacher ratios and the incidence of communicable ailments, etc.

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Lol. I thought we had just agreed! Just goes to show how little I know.

I was just making the point that not all women consider short hair traumatic.

Forgive me if mis- speak. However wouldn’t it have been better to say you didn’t understand me, rather than I didn’t make sense? I mean you are probably right but very occasionally I get something right and others misread. Just occasionally.

Okay. Thanks for clarifying.

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Yea, the pro’s said its basically impossible to get all the eggs with the combs, that’s why the ten day followup treatment is necessary.

The combing will do pretty well at getting the adults, which will help ensure that new eggs are not being laid (which would let those eggs get past the followup period).

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No. You were right. I was totally unclear.

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Okay. I appreciate that.

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