How to Treat Lice

Head Lice have been raging around Nevada County and people have been asking if I have a more natural remedy than using insecticide on your or your child’s head.  Indeed, I do!  The American Academy of Pediatrics published an article by an MD on using the gentle facial cleanser Cetaphil to rid the lice.  Here is the beta.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/e275.full

Quick directions

Go to your drugstore and buy Cetaphil cleanser (no prescription needed, get the regular one, not the one for oily skin!) in the soap department. It works by coating the lice and suffocating them.

Apply the Cetaphil cleanser throughout the scalp to dry hair.

After all the hair is wet, wait 2 minutes for Cetaphil to soak in.

Comb out as much excess cleanser as possible.

Blow dry your child's hair. It has to be thoroughly dry down to the scalp to suffocate the lice. Expect this to take 3 times longer then it would if the hair was just wet with water.

The dried Cetaphil will smother the lice. Leave it on your child's hair for at least 8 hours.

In the morning, wash off the Cetaphil with a regular shampoo.

To cure your child of lice, REPEAT this process twice in 1 and 2 weeks.

The cure rate is 97%

Other resources:
http://nuvoforheadlice.com/test/

http://nuvoforheadlice.com/test/?page_id=9#acceptLicense 

Some other fun facts:

Lice can only live 24 hours with no food (our blood), so if you have them on furniture, etc, they will die after 24 hours. 

Nits that hatch into lice take 7-10 days to sexually mature, so they cannot reproduce before that, so if you suffocate them in that time period, they cannot lay more eggs.