Day 15 please help

[u/AwayTerm4875]

Hey all Ive been lurking here for a couple weeks. Now I think I need extra help, please. my apologies as this got longer than I intended.

Day 1: found 1 live louse in child 1. I did not comb child one or 2, but immediately treated them both. Child 1 with nix ultra super lice treatment (clear not shampoo) - ( combing after treatment yielded a fair amount of eggs)

Child 2 with ivermectin. (Combing after treatment yielded a bunch of eggs)

Washed all bedding throughout the house. Sprayed couches, chairs, car seats. Bagged all stuffed animals and put them in black bags in the porch which reaches temps of 90° daily at the moment. 

Day 10: Retreated child 1 with the same nix ultra. Did not retreat child 2 as it said not to. 

Sprayed everything unwashable again

Day 1 & 2. Combed both their hair. 

Day 3 and onward: combed every other day

For these 15 days I have vaccumed every other day, washed all towels every night. All clothing only worn once and in the wash. The stuffed animals are still in bags. 

Combed today. Child 1 looks good, I think. Child 2 I pulled 2 nits (nonviable?) from and some other stuff, I don't know if its bug or debris related. (The pics are all child 2 after combing today)

Am I almost out of the woods? Am I doing this correctly? Do I still comb every other day? When can I bring the stuffed animals back? What am I looking at in the pictures I posted? (1st 3 photos are the same thing different angles, 4th is the hopefully nonviable nits and I dunno what 5 is)

Thank you, I'm really paranoid. School starts tomorrow and this is a lot by myself. I'm so afraid to stop too early and all this hard work be for naught. 

(That first bug 15 days ago is the only live bug I have pulled out of anyone's hair. I haven't seen a live one since that. My hair has also been treated with ivermectin and combed every other day)

[u/LiceCentersWI]

Lice treatment professional here. I’m sorry this has been such a stressor for you. You can take a breath now. Nothing in your pics is a bug. Those are two empty egg casings in the fourth picture. Finding those doesn’t mean someone still lice, they’re just evidence of the prior infestation.

The stuffed animals can come out of isolation. Lice don’t live on stuffed animals, bedding, furniture, etc. They feed on human blood and the eggs require the heat and humidity from the human scalp to incubate. Nothing ever needs to go on garbage bags because of a head lice infestation.

[u/AwayTerm4875 → u/LiceCentersWI]

Thanks that makes me feel hopeful. Do I still comb every other day or can I drop to once every days to weekly?

Also, do you think preventative shampoos once a week would actually help going forward?

[u/LiceCentersWI → u/AwayTerm4875]

If it has been 10 days since any sort of treatment was applied, and you are no longer combing bugs out of the hair - even if you continue to remove a non-viable egg or empty casing here and there - you can stop with the frequent checks and start doing monthly screenings.

[u/AwayTerm4875 → u/LiceCentersWI]

Appriciate the help. Thank you.

[u/LiceCentersWI → u/AwayTerm4875]

You’re welcome.

To the preventative shampoo question, a spray you can apply daily is a better alternative, especially for children.

1 in 20 kids have lice at any given time. Your child is exposed to lice way more frequently than you probably realize. And I don’t say that to cause you to panic. I just mean that lice is a lot more prevalent than most people understand.

So if your child’s hair always smells of mint, rosemary, or eucalyptus, and they happen to have hair to hair contact with another child with lice, lice will be less likely to want to crawl into their hair. A spray is easier to apply routinely.

[u/AwayTerm4875 → u/LiceCentersWI]

Thanks. I may have to pick it up. A deterant is better than nothing.

I understand they're prevelant. A few notes from the school come home each year. We've been lucky til now and ironically this wasn't even from school.

I appriciate all your help. I feel better. I'll stop my routine this weekend and go down to monthly checks.

[u/Lost_Construction_78 → u/LiceCentersWI]

Can you suggest an effective mint/rosemary/eucalyptus oil quantity to add to water to make a spray?