At LCA San Diego we want to work with schools and teachers to help them avoid cross infestations in the classrooms. We help nurses perform head screenings to catch infestations right at the begging! If you are part of a school or a school nurse, contact us for more information: info@lcasandiego.com.
Unfortunately, some of us already have experienced the stigma of lice on ourselves or our children. Once a kid has lice it becomes the topic everyone is talking about, and not always in a good way. We all know lice are perceived as disgusting, gross and dirty. But what’s really the science behind it? Do we have enough information to make such assumptions?
It has been scientifically proven that lice do not care for a dirty environment but rather clean. Another fact to keep in mind is that although head lice bite and feed from our blood they do not transmit any diseases. Head lice would prefer one head to another depending on humidity and type of blood so none of us is immune to them regardless of our cleanliness, race or economic background.
Being educated and educating our children on head lice will help us destroy the social stigma once and for all. Misinformation and ignorance of head lice facts leads to social stigma. It is understandable that they are unwanted as they may be hard to be killed, especially for lack of communication. Due to the social stigma, parents and children hide the fact that they are or have been infested, spreading therefore the infestation to other people. As soon as we suspect having lice, the best is to communicate it to everyone around us so they can be protected or receive a head lice removal treatment as soon as possible.
After all, life happens and lice, happens too.
Once you’ve had an infestation at home or when you hear your friends talking about lice, you wonder… how can I prevent lice?
You might have heard that peppermint or rosemary oil are a natural repellent and even though it is, lice have become resilient to it and it would not protect you completely from getting it. There are, however, many things you can do to reduce the risk of getting head lice.
For your children:
* braid your child’s hair or put it up in a pony tale.
* keep their jackets and other clothing in a bag while at school.
* teach your children not to share hats, comb or brushes, hair accessories or helmets.
* tell them to avoid head to head contact when taking pictures or selfies or when studying
* screen them every other day until they reach 8th grade. Finding nits on time will reduce the level of infestation.
For yourself:
* wear your hair up and avoid sharing anything touching another person hair (hair brushes, helmets, hats, etc.)
* items that might be infested can be placed in a cloth dryer on high heat.
* when traveling by bus, airplane or at the movie theater, protect your head.
Screening often is your best option to prevent lice. In addition, LCA San Diego provides an innovative product to repel head lice from crawling to your head.
(info about protect )
And if you get infested…. contact us! Same day appointments with policy* for 30 days in just one hour.
You come home from work and while combing your child’s hair… lice! Or you hear… “I found a bug in my head today!” Or you get a call or a letter from school alerting you about a lice outbreak. We’ve been there. We know how it feels like. You want to reach out, but not too much. You want to find a solution, but you’re not sure what’s best… We suggest you watch this short video where parents like you share their stories:
Finding lice on your children can be from frustrating to scary, overwhelming and gross almost always. We know it and we are here to help. Our team of professionals offers the best solution to take care of head lice. Our FDA cleared꙳ device kills lice & nits (eggs) by using heated air. 1 hour treatment and done! No need to cut your child’s hair, spend countless hours handpicking nits and …, most importantly, no need for follow ups. Of course, we complement our dehydration treatment with the use of only natural, non-toxic products to assure you the best care during our lice removal treatment. If your children are struggling with lice… make an appointment now, even same day appointments are available!
You just found out your child or you have lice. Your first impulse may be to run to the pharmacy and get one of the over the counter treatments or use home remedies you found online or heard from a friend. We would like to save you time and money before you decide to remove lice by yourself. Trust us, we get many calls each week from moms that are going exactly through the same overwhelming problem. We understand you want to take care of your kid’s lice problem. It shouldn’t be too hard, right? Well it may not be very difficult but it is actually a very tiring and frustrating experience.
Recognizing lice and its symptoms
You first need to recognize what lice look like and what the common signs are. Scratching can be a symptom but not everybody scratches. Itchiness is an allergic reaction to the bug’s saliva and some children start scratching only after weeks from having the first bug. You may see some nits (lice eggs) that are firmly glued to the hair shaft close to the scalp (no farther than half an inch). The viable ones are usually dark brown. The white ones can be mistaken as dandruff, but the eggs cannot be as easily removed. Most likely you will find the nits first, adult bugs move really fast and are more difficult to spot.
Treating lice & nits
Now you are certain that there is a lice infestation. Be assured that the only way to take care of it for good is by killing the nits. If you do this by yourself, you need to be absolutely certain you remove every single one of the tiny eggs. If you miss one, it will hatch again and recreate the infestation. Removing all nits is a tricky thing as there is a big chance of human error. You would need to be able to comb out the hair every day for at least ten days. Have in mind that long or curly hair will become even more difficult to comb out. You will have to apply dimethicone oil treatment every few days to suffocate any bugs before they lay eggs. Take in consideration that most over the counter treatments or shampoos have either toxic pesticides or chemicals and even the prescription pill doesn’t kill the nits. According to some experts, lice are becoming resistant to many treatments.
Our Head Lice Removal Treatment in San Diego
LCA San Diego uses the FDA cleared꙳ ™ device, the only treatment option available that is clinically proven to kill 99%+ of the nits. The treatment will kill lice in one single session, using non-toxic products and in just one hour!.
Killing head lice is not only taking care of the head. Your house, car and other belongings might have some lice and may cause you or those around you to be infested or even re-infested! Taking care of your house is very important to complement your head lice removal treatment.
Heat is one of the most effective ways of taking care of lice: Wash all the clothes, hats, jackets and linens and place them in the dryer in high heat for 30minutes. You can also place stuffed animals, pillows and other fabric items in the dryer to kill the lice. In addition, boil all the combs, head bands, clips and hair accessories.
All the other items that cannot go in the dryer or boiled should be placed in a plastic bag and left air tight for over 48h. Lice cannot survive for more than 48h off a human head. Vacuum all carpets and couches and clean your house to take out any louse that may have been left behind. Remember to vacuum your car seats. Also you can use a sticky roller to take care of leather seats, and a wipe to clean your plastic child´s car seats or car raisers.
Make sure you take all this precautions after you have been treated so that no re-infestation is possible! Call us if you have questions and we’ll help you delouse your house.
1. Lice don´t JUMP… or fly… or hop…they crawl. Unlike many people´s beliefs, lice don´t jump from head to head. They are really fast crawlers and just being shoulder to shoulder, or a strain of hair is enough for them to travel from one head to another.
2. Lice don´t DISCRIMINATE. They don´t care about age, race, economic background or even hygiene. They actually prefer clean (!!) heads.
3. Human Lice don´t spread to animals. Pets have their own lice. Don´t worry about your dogs, cats or even hamsters getting lice 🙂
4. Lice have been around since the caveman. They are not a new infestation but they are more resilient than before and they are not easily killed!
5. 1 on every 20 kids has lice. U.S. children miss 12 to 24 MILLION days of school each year due to head lice.
Killing head lice can be a nightmare. Killing adult lice is way easier than removing the nits that according to some experts, are becoming resistant to most of the chemicals used in several of the over the counter treatments. If you miss a few nits, these will hatch and start the infestation again.
At LCA San Diego, we offer a pain-free, fast one time appointment to kill head lice. Our medical device is FDA cleared꙳ and has clinically proven to kill over 99% of lice eggs through heated air. It´s one and done, just in one hour and we have a policy!*