louse in the house
Posted on March 8, 2007
Filed Under kids, parenting, suburban joys |
What two words strike fear in the hearts of pathological neat freaks everywhere? HEAD LICE. And these two words were uttered in my house last night after supper. I haven’t been the same since. Restricted airways, nervous laughter, vivid dreams about dragging clothing and comforters and stuffed dogs out to the yard and igniting a bonfire.
The conversation that started this hysteria was innocuous really. It went something like this:
Mommy?
Yes, O?
My second best friend got sent home from school today.
Really, for what? (I imagined some delinquent behavior like biting, or mooning or stealing a Kindergartner’s lunch money.)
Head Lice.
Head Lice? Are your sure?
Yes Mommy. What are head lice?
That’s when I really lost it, began to lose my grip on reality and starting phoning other parents of second graders to confirm that yes, TWO second graders had been banished with bugs. I developed an insane urge to itch, to drag fork tines through my hair and rub my scalp on the banister.
Did you know that a common treatment for head lice is Malathion? I’m serious, the CDC’s Division of Parasitic Diseases recommends leaving Malathion in your hair for 8 to 12 hours. Talk about the cure being worse than the disease. Just a cursory Google search on Malathion turns up photographs of dead ducks, turtles with tumors and mutant
tadpoles. And I’m going to pour this on my head? Apparently Malathion itself is relatively non-toxic to humans but, when said organophosphate parasympathomimetic (just a name like that makes me think CANCER) becomes degraded or forms impurities during storage and production, the stuff becomes 60% more toxic. (See photo of dead duck, just three days after Malathion was sprayed in the area for mosquito control.)
So when I get over the genotoxicity of the treatment, I will begin the excruciating ritual of removing wallpaper, resanding wood floors and torching non-washables in the backyard in order to ensure the louse have been eradicated once and for all from the Madmarriage residence. But I’m getting ahead of myself, we haven’t a bug among
us…Yet.
Did I mention that Malathion is highly flammable? Yup, that’ll be me running down Main Street with my head on fire.
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Lice must be a second grade curse. 5 years ago, my daughter had a classmate who had rampant lice and infected most of the class, including my daughter. It got so bad I actually considered pulling her from school from mid-Nov. through Christmas break. If you find any nits, the best treatment I found was RID; if you want to go home remedy: mayonnaise or even olive oil! All you actually have to do is suffocate the little monsters (the lice not the children). Glop the mayo on your child’s hair (sort of like the hair color commercials you see with what’shername); and then carefully wrap Seran Wrap around the hair. Leave it on for an hour or two and then be prepared to shampoo, shampoo, shampoo to get it all out. Bag up your stuffed animals in dark plastic garbage bags and head to the laudromat with your bedding. Buy yourself a lice comb and try not to cry (which was my first reaction). Don’t forget to put the winter coat she wears to school and any other headgear in the dryer, and spray her car seat as well (RID makes a very effective spray). Good luck. One line of defense is thought to be blow dryers; studies have found that people who blow dry their hair are less likely to have lice since the lice don’t like the intense heat of the dryer.
I this thing comes for us, I am in big trouble…Saran wrap, mayonnaise, garbage bags full of stuffed animals. I may have to shave my head and climb into my very own garbage bag for two weeks.
So far no signs of the creepy crawlers but I’m on high alert!
Apologies for the lack of snark.
Malathion is a mild organophosphate. It damages nerves by irreversibly inhibiting acetylcholinesterase. You can read about it here: http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/malagen.pdf
Damage from irreversible AChE inhibitors can be prevented or limited by treatment and/or pretreatment with REVERSIBLE acetylcholinesterase inhibiters.
Interestingly, Huperzine, a club moss derivative, is a widely sold herb that also is a reversible AChE inhibiter. Pre-treatment with Huperzine has been shown to prevent organophosphate poisoning.
While I would like to see a scientifically valid study of Huperzine use among farm-workers, I have decided that the cost/benefit equation is such that I take a couple huperzine tablets prior to working with any organophosphates. I would do the same if I was soaking my child in malathion.
Note: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.
Review of the value of huperzine as pretreatment of organophosphate poisoning: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12164543&dopt=Abstract
Oral administration of pyridostigmine bromide and huperzine A protects human whole blood cholinesterases from ex vivo exposure to soman: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16256090&dopt=Abstract
cce: PLEASE do not Google either “Demodex folliculorum” or “Demodex brevis.” I fear you would go Britney Spears on us if you learned that your face and eyelashes are infested with microscopic mites. Oops, I said it again.
Still laughing. Nothing like a microscopic mite to engender full blown hair-on-fire parental hysteria.
There are many things I have been grateful for in my eighteen years as a parent. Never having to deal with lice is right there at the top of the list.
The words have been uttered at our house also - compliments of a contained outbreak in kindergarten. I have to admit that I headed to my doctor and had me checked out - only after I convinced the nurse (who felt strongly that I did not need to come in) that I was unsure and that I needed a professional diagnosis.
Turns out I have a very dry scalp
I wish all of you dry scalp.
Dry scalp it is…itching like crazy but no signs of actual life in the proverbial rat’s nest. But life’s not perfect because the toilet’s broken and we have house guests. Maybe we’ll send them home with permanent scars from all six of us using the same toilet AND some louse for their house.
[…] It is so November around here as the head lice epidemic returns to school, inspiring something like panic and the sterilization of all brushes. Mandatory head checks are in effect. All playmates must be certified nit-free before entering the house. […]
[…] A post that just needs to be included here and therefore will take the Wild Card spot is Louse in the House, proof that I was dancing dangerously close to insanity last March. […]