The worst six weeks of my life

I remember late 2015 with horror due to an unstoppable head lice epidemic in our local primary school.  It felt like the worst 6 weeks of my life and that is coming from someone whose epidural stopped working for 1 minute 45 seconds during a Caesarean delivery of twins.   So as you can imagine, it was really bad.

My daughter Larissa was in year two and she came home scratching one day and informed me that she was itchy.    I was actually not sure what to do as I had been lucky enough to avoid head lice thus far but thankfully my mum was there.  She had a quick look and immediately removed some lice with her fingers – to my shock we could see them crawling on a tissue.    I was horrified and automatically felt appalling, questioning the cleanliness and hygiene of the house and my daughter.

I am inclined to go for natural therapies first, so I went to the supermarket and got my first ever Head Lice treatment shampoo.  Two hours later, Rissie was in tears, her head had been scrubbed and I had sat there for over an hour combing her hair with a nit comb and searching for eggs to pull off the hair strands with my fingers.  I was also onto my third load of washing as all bed linen and bath-towels were being washed.  We were both exhausted.

Three days later she came home again scratching her head but telling me over and over again she was not itchy. (She was trying to avoid what she knew was coming next)  She had lice again.  This time I tried a stronger treatment and I actually cringed as I put it on her.   Over the next 2 weeks we did this three more times.   The third and fourth weeks we tried ‘alternative’ treatments that included rinsing her hair in Listerine and then Selsun Blue.   One night I even put her to bed after spraying her head with aeroguard and covering her head with a shower cap.    Absolutely nothing seemed to work and they kept on coming back.   I felt like I googled and found every single head lice treatment on the planet but none of them seemed to be preventing them returning.

In the 5^th week I rang my hair dresser and in tears asked her if she could shave off Rissie’s hair.   She told me that she had heard on the grapevine that it was one of the worst infestations that the school had experienced and that unfortunately a few kids were just not being treated so that the problem was not going to go away.  She recommended that I use the heavy duty chemical stuff one more time and then she mentioned that she had heard of some hair bands that were being used to prevent lice.

After dousing Rissie one more time in chemicals that made my eyes water and cringing at the sight of her tender little scalp, I jumped on the internet and found Po-Lice Hair bands.   By this stage I was doing a lot of crying, and I wept with relief at the thought of something that would prevent lice.   The treatment is time consuming, painful for both mum and the kids, expensive and filled with awful chemicals so was willing to try anything if it actually worked on preventing head lice.  We had tried some sprays but I hated the smell, Rissie hated the stickiness and the Lice did not seem to mind them as they kept on jumping on board my daughter’s head.

I finally got on top of the lice at the same time that the hair bands arrived.   She wears them to school every day now and as of March, 2016 she has never had another case of lice.   I would find it hard to go through something like that again so as a result she is never without her hair bands.    The beauty of the Hair Bands is that they prevent head lice, and in my view, something that prevents the little blighters is a thousand times better than any of the treatments available.

The worst 6 weeks of my life – never again I say!   So glad that we have found the Po-Lice Hair bands – they are here to stay.