Headlice (merged)

elainew

I would say it is an emergency--the wee soul is in pain

Spendless

I'd ring, they will either say make appt monday or go to out of surgery/a & e.

Charlie23

who should i ring? nhs direct or the out of hours at my surgery?
We've been to social services before about other things but they say nothing is wrong. She was at the doctors last week for this 3rd lot of chicken pox and nothing seems to have been said so i don't think they will do anything.

elainew

I think I would phone NHS direct and ask their advice

Spendless

I'd ring nhs direct too, you can always ention that your dr's has an out of hours surgery to them, depending on what their advice is.

re-the chicken pox. It is possibly to get it more than once. DH's godson no sooner got over 1 bout than came down with another. His mum queried it with their dr who said if you don't develop immunity (sp!) to it (which a lot of people do), then you can catch it again. So if your immune system isn't fully developed when you get it, you can get it again.

Loopy_Lobes

Poor little mite, I feel so sad for her. Maybe it would be for the best if you could persuade her mum to have her hair cut shorter, a nice little bob still looks pretty and it would be easier to comb the nits out. At that age it wouldn't be long at all before it grows long again.

If she can be persuaded maybe ring round and try to find a sympathetic hairdresser to come to the house to do a haircut. If the hair is shorter the combing will be quicker and less painful. Then once the lice are gone her eczema would get the chance to heal as the only way to help eczema is to stop the scratch/itch cycle and obviously with the lice there this isn't going to be the case. I've caught lice from my daughter and the itching was horrendous so I can't imagine what it must be like for her with horrendous eczema as well :sad:

Also check out her fingernails and make sure they're really short, file them too if necessary to make sure there aren't any sharp bits to damage the skin further.

I really hope this all gets sorted out really soon.

Charlie23

just debating what to do at the moment.
Her mum doesn't want to cut sdd's hair, she's grown thr fringe out. DF and i think that she wants a mini me. I said to my sdd about thinning her hair and she said 'no my mummy doesn't want me to cut my hair' personally i think it should be a lot shorter and a lot thinner as it is quite thick at the back.
We've cut her finger nails, again these aren't cut very often. I think its because my sdd cries when its done.

blue_monkey_2

I'll say different, if the pharmacist has said to get her to a docs ASAP then you should call the out of hours surgery and get them to see her - they will be able to prescribe her something. Can she take Calpol or Ibruprofen to take the edge off. Have you tried putting LOTS of natural conditioner in her hair and wrapping it in a towel, leave it either overnight or for an hour or so and rinse it off with cool water, this will soothe her skin and also make some of the nits fall out.

Not being funny because I know you have issues but that is neither here nor there for us to discuss but maybe her mum has not been able to treat them because of the excema (I hate that word so hard to spell, LOL) either - but she should have told you anyway. Also just a thought that if you wash her hair wrap it up in a towel and then she cannot get to the head or hair to scratch and the hair will not move around to much to irritate her either.

Please call a doctor as the pharmacist advised and they can prescribe you the right stuff rather than have her wait another 24-36 hours. It should not mater that she is only visiting, you just have to fill out a form.

Gangstabird

Just a thought; the prospectus from my infants school says that they can eventually exclude a child who has nits only on the local council advice.

Campaign, campaign, campaign for this. Get nitty nora back, the school nurse.

If a child has nits forever, then they should be excluded until the parent/carer sorts it out. I am thinking back to a neighbour of mine whose child had nits so bad they were burrowing into her head. The reason for this, 'oh she cries if I do the comb'. An ex army friend said that it was the worst infestation he had seen and helped her with the nits. That child screamed as it was the first time a person had tried to help her. It was b l oody f uking aawful.

The thing was, everyone knew that the mum wasn't dealing with it.

blue_monkey_2

It is hard to know what to advise, at the end of the day you should really respect that her mum does not want her hair cut. Your SDD will get to an age to make her own descisions, my DD is nearly 6 and has just made that descision - before that it was how I wanted it and DD knew that. Is her head bad like this all the time with excema and nits or is it just this time that she has been around.