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Got Lice? Here’s how to treat it!

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Head lice can be an intimidating thing to deal with. We offer two treatment methods that will ensure that your family is lice free! Our first treatment is a saline comb out performed by our trained clinicians in our clinic. We use a saline solution to comb through every strand of hair in order to remove as many nits as possible. We finish with our dimethicone “goop” that kills any crawling bug on the head within 10 minutes. In 7 to 10 days, we do another saline comb out in order to ensure you are completely lice free. Lice can lay eggs so close to the scalp that even our combs cannot get them. This is why we require a second treatment within 7 to 10 days following the first treatment. This allows the hair to grow enough for our combs to get the rest of the nits left behind. 

Our second method of treatment is a lower cost option: our at-home treatment. With this treatment, the dimethicone goop is used on days 0, 10, and 20. In between these days, you must comb out the hair each day in order to remove the nits. By using the goop every 10 days and removing the nits, there eventually will not be any louse left to lay new eggs. A louse takes approximately 30 days to develop from an egg to an adult louse. However, a female louse that is over 10 days old is able to lay eggs. This is why it is important to comb the hair every day in between the goop treatments. The less eggs there are left to hatch, the less bugs there will be to lay more eggs. 

 

What’s Effective, Visual Head Lice Checks or Combing?

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Recently, we’ve had customers ask why we don’t do visual head lice checks in addition to our comb-out checking. The reason? Visual checks can miss a lot of things. The nits and lice are the same color if your hair is dyed and  It can be hard to spot the few eggs/nits that are laid so close to the scalp.  This is especially true if you have a light infestation.

In fact, a 2001 study showed that, “The average time until detection of the first louse was 57.0 seconds with the comb as compared to 116.4 seconds by direct visual examination. Diagnosis of louse infestation using a louse comb is four times more efficient than direct visual examination and twice as fast.”

While visual head lice checks are still better than no check at all, a lice infestation would have to be fairly advanced in order for it to be easily seen with the naked eye. Many summer camps, school programs, or day cares will use pencils or chopsticks to  inspect the scalp. This is still good! Any check is better than no check at all.

However, we go right to combing to see what the comb finds. This is a better use of both our time and your time. It helps us find lice and nits twice as fast! Then we can get you lice free and back to your day.

We sell our Terminator brand professional combs, so you can use what we use on your children at home! We have a tutorial video on how to do thorough comb outs, and we have an instruction sheet posted as well. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call (865) 245-5353!

Head lice and Halloween!

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Head lice is a huge concern during Halloween! Trying on costumes at the store, all the masks and wigs, sharing funny hats, these are all great ways to pass head lice around.

We recommend a few simple ways to prevent lice this spooky season:

  • Don’t try on head gear or costumes at the store. You never know who had that on right before you!
  • Keep costumes in a plastic bag for 48 hours or in the freezer for 8 hours before you try them on. That still gives you time to return them if they don’t fit, but you can kill any head lice that might be on them before you put it on yourself.
  • Don’t share costumes between people. Keep your costume on your child, with no switching back and forth.

Hopefully these tips will help you stay lice free! Let the scariest thing this fall be your costume, not the head lice on it.

Back to School!

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It’s that time of year again! Lice are prevalent in schools across America, and it seems like Tennessee has been hit pretty hard lately. We have a few quick ways to prevent lice from spreading within your classrooms and schools.

  1. Keep long hair up. Lice don’t jump or fly, they travel from loose hair to loose hair. Buns and braids are the best way to keep lice from making the switch to your head. Keeping all the flyaways down is very important!
  2. No head to head contact. Even a bun won’t save you if you put your head on someone else’s head.
  3. Peppermint spray. Tea tree oil does not prevent head lice. A good preventive spray uses essential oil from the mint family, of which peppermint is the best.
  4. Vacuum or lint roll yourself and your furniture. Both vacuuming and lint rolling will get lice off of soft surfaces. For plastic or vinyl, use a Clorox wipe.
  5. Hugs, unfortunately, are a good way to spread head lice. Side hugs, high fives, and fist bumps are good alternatives! Selfies are also responsible for the rise of head lice in middle, high school, and college students. Be sure to warn your students about the dangers or touching heads.
  6. Sharing is not all that caring. Even sharing things like jackets can spread head lice, because many people have hair long enough to touch the fabric. Hoodies that get pulled on over the head will also spread lice.

When in doubt, contact your lice clinic for a head check. At only $25, we can give you peace of mind within 30 minutes.

If you have any questions, call or email us today!

Summer is here!

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Warm weather is finally here! Schools will be out, the pools are open, summer camps are looking at registration, and your vacation is being planned. Head lice don’t take the summer off, and neither should you. Here are a few tips for staying lice free this summer!

  1. Continue head checking your children! Check before and after events, like camps, family reunions, or vacations. Our head checks are $25, and we comb through the entire head. If you come in for a product purchase to get a comb, we will do a comb out demo to make sure you know what you are looking for!
  2. Bring your own pillow to sleepovers! Make sure your children don’t share brushes, hoodies, or pillows. Lice only7 need 3 seconds to transfer heads, and anything that goes from head to head can bring a bug with it.
  3. Keep your hair up! Tight buns and braids are the best ways to stay lice free. Peppermint preventive spray to finish off a hairstyle will help keep lice away from your head as well.
  4. Selfies are dangerous! By all means, take those photos, but keep your heads from touching when you do it.
  5. If you go swimming, don’t share towels! They can grab the fabric and get delivered to a new head as you dry off.

Because lice can hold their breath for 19 hours, swimming pools are safe. The little bugs just take a deep breath and hold on tight, they’re not interested in swimming to a new head.

Have fun this summer, and do it lice free!

Holiday Head Lice Checklist

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No one wants to deal with head lice, especially after a hectic and stressful holiday period!  Parents have enough on their plates with the travel, entertaining, shopping, and cleaning everything up after the New Year.  We put together this head lice checklist for preventing lice infestations after the holidays.

Unfortunately, the holidays can be a peak time for head lice, so it is important to be vigilant.  This is especially true if you traveled to spend time with other families or hosted other families in your home. Lice primarily spread through head-to-head contact, and children get lice more often than adults do because kids spend more time in close contact.

Whether you were the visitor or the visited, there are some steps you can take to ensure that you don’t send your child back to school with head lice.

  1. Get a professional lice screening. If there is a chance you or your children were exposed to head lice over the holidays, the best thing you can do for yourself and your peace of mind is get a professional head lice screening. We offer them for just $25, and if you do have head lice and choose to be treated at our clinic, that fee is waived. Head lice can be very difficult to diagnose, and false positives are very common. You do not want to get treated for head lice if you don’t have the bugs!
  1. Use preventative products. People tend to deal with head lice reactively—meaning we freak out when we find head lice in our children and try to get rid of the problem as fast as we can. That’s perfectly normal, but we now have products that can help to prevent head lice in the first place. Peppermint Spritz, Spearmint Conditioner (my personal favorite!), Peace Love Mint Preventive Headbands, Treatment Goop and Terminator Combs are available at our clinic or on our online store. Unlike most over-the-counter lice products, all Knoxville Lice Clinic products are safe and pesticide-free.

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How to Stay Lice Free in 2019 from Knoxville Lice Clinic

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For decades, the standard of care for head lice has focused on reactive treatment using pesticide-based products. “Head lice has been associated with poor hygiene or dirty homes and has had mortified parents treating the nuisance in secret, often to no avail,” said Jennifer Fribourg, owner of Knoxville Lice Clinic.

“That’s changing as the medical and educational communities have taken steps to bring head lice out of the darkness of fear and ignorance,” Jennifer Fribourg said. “Now we focus on education, prevention, and pesticide-free solutions when head lice are found.”

Indeed, the internet is full of homespun advice on how to treat head lice, urging parents to use everything from mayonnaise to kerosene to kill the bugs. Home remedies people recommend range from laughable to downright dangerous, and Knoxville Lice Clinic is bringing the latest science and medicine to the forefront of the battle against head lice.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that one in five children under 12 years old have head lice,” Jennifer Fribourg said, “and that it has nothing to do with cleanliness or hygiene. We can also tell you from experience that head lice don’t discriminate, and that people from all walks of life come to our clinic and leave lice-free.”

“We are also adamant about not using pesticide-based products that don’t work—products that can be worse than the condition they are trying to treat,” Jennifer said. “Studies published in medical journals have found that 98 percent of head lice in much of the world are now resistant to the pesticides used in traditional lice products, and these pesticides have been linked to behavioral and developmental problems in children.”

Preventive products include sprays, conditioners, and shampoos that can be used daily or weekly at bath time and act as a lice repellent. All of the products use essential oils and inert gels that contain no harmful chemicals.

To learn more or to schedule an appointment, email info@knoxvilleliceclinic.com, or call (865) 245-5353. 

We get lice, too!

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We deal with a lot of head lice in this job. Prevention is our best friend, and we head check each other constantly! Some of our favorite things to prevent lice are :

  • Our giant fluffy hats. Jennifer hand makes most of them so that all our hair is covered when we’re messing with people’s hair!
  • Lint rollers! We lint roll ourselves a LOT. Lice can’t hold to fabric very well, and this way we can be sure we don’t have lice on our clothes when we take our hats off.
  • Tight buns and braids. We keep our hair under the hats, but it’s easiest to prevent little strands from escaping if we have our hair pinned up.
  • Preventive spray! One of my coworkers does a little dance every day as she rains peppermint spray down over herself – and anyone standing nearby! It works though, she stays very lice free.
  • Head checks. We all have our paranoid moments. Usually, one of us will come in saying we itch and need a head check, and get teased about being paranoid during a good comb out. Then the next week, it’s that person’s turn to be scared!
  • Sometimes, we will Treatment Goop a client and send them home. It is important to us to stay lice free, and after a certain amount of bugs in a person’s hair, we will Treatment Goop a client and send them home to wash so they can come back without excess living bugs, and we can protect our employees. This is rare, but does occasionally happen.

 

Some of what we do is in our own lives. One of my coworkers came in with lice and thought she got it at work. When we checked her child to make sure he was lice free, he was much worse than mom! We do head checks on our families fairly often, just like we advise our clients to do. Head lice are a very easy thing to miss, unless you’re looking closely. Our college students tend to wear their hair up while on campus, and we all are a little wary of hugging people or sharing anything.

Because so many people have head lice, it is important to be careful where ever you are. As my coworker Sarah says, “Constant vigilance!”

 

 

Halloween and Head Lice

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It’s a spooky time of year! For most parents, the threat of head lice is the scariest thing around. School has been back in session for long enough that people are discovering lice, and the holiday season is right around the corner.

Halloween presents it’s own set of issues. How many of you took your kids (or yourself!) out to try on Halloween costumes? Those outfits, hats, and masks get put on many different people every day. When someone with lice pulls a costume over their head, they can knock a louse off their hair and onto the fabric where it lies in wait for the next unsuspecting customer to put it on and find a new home. Trying on masks and hats is the same. We all remember not to share hats until we see the latest Jack Skellington or unicorn bobble head hat at Wal-Mart. I’ve been tempted to put one on for a picture with a friend myself, and I know the dangers well.

There are a few ways to prevent lice this holiday season. One option is to visually check things before you put them on. Hats, wigs, masks (full face and masquerade), and hair accessories can hide a louse who will be more than happy to make your head their new home. As always, keep your hair in tight buns and braids, and use peppermint to discourage lice from picking your head to land on.

When you bring a costume home, try to keep it in a bag for 48 hours. Putting things in the freezer for 8 hours will also kill lice.

Have a happy and (not too terrifying) Halloween!

Who to Tell About Head Lice

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We have a lot of families in here who find out they have head lice and freeze. Who do they tell? How far back to do they need to go? What if it’s embarrassing?

The hard truth is that you need to share the information. Most people have head lice from 6-8 weeks before the population builds up enough to become noticeable, so you need to look at least two months back to see who to inform. This isn’t just for their benefit; if you don’t tell anybody, they can’t get checked, and there is a risk that they can give it back to you and you’ll have to do this whole thing over again.

Here is a general list of who you need to contact about having lice:

  • Family. If you saw your sister, or just babysat your nephews, or the kids spent the weekend at their grandparents, all those people have been exposed to lice.
  • Friends. Many of our clients are in school, and their friends’ parents need to know that their children have been exposed to lice. This is even more critical if they have sleepovers, or if they hug or share jackets or hats.
  • Significant others. If you have lice, odds are the person you hang out with a lot has lice, as well. Hugs, cuddles, and bed sharing are great ways to spread lice. For middle or high school students, borrowing a hoodie or jacket from someone you have a crush on is a great way to catch it, even with minimal personal contact.
  • Roommates, dorm mates, sorority sisters, or fraternity brothers. If you share a living space, there’s a great chance you accidentally shared lice.
  • Sports teams. Sometimes Little League teams share helmets. Most girls’ teams require ponytails, which can flip lice through the air from girl to girl during a game or cheerleading or dance routine. In addition, these teams foster tight friendships, so you can often inform their friend circle and their team with a few calls.
  • Child care. Day cares have lice the same way schools do, and so do after school programs. If you have a regular babysitter, nanny, or just a good friend or family member who watches your child, let them know as well.
  • Salons. Sometimes your hairdresser will miss seeing lice in your hair. Because they work so closely with hair, they have special regulations associated with head lice. It is a good policy to let them know if there’s a chance you had lice during your last visit.

The good news is, we can help. If you give us names and numbers, we will call schools, dance groups, coaches, after school programs, day cares, and hair dressers. We do it anonymously, saying only that we had a client come in (in Mrs. Smith’s class, in 9th grade, in the 7pm dance class on Wednesdays) who had lice. They are now lice free, but the client requested we inform the business that head lice were in their location.

The only way to keep our community lice free is if the entire community works together. Some schools cannot inform parents that head lice were found, so your best bet is to tell your friends. Moms have an amazing informal information network. Your school’s PTA can help make sure that people are doing monthly head checks and keeping their children clear, which will reduce the likelihood of your own children catching it again.