Killing Lice on your kids and at Home

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Killing Lice on your kids and at Home is not always an easy task. The most important part of removing head lice at home is to treat all the infested ones with a head lice treatment.

LCA San Diego Treatments

LCA San Diego offer ours signature  along with a careful combing and cleanup that will result in successful lice removal.LCA San Diego has a variety of science-based, non-toxic treatments – products and services – adaptable to any budget. We strive to provide easy and simple to use product so you can be the hero of the day. In the same way, our services are tailored to offer safe, easy and quick treatments that are extremely effective.

Treating the home

Cleaning up after head lice seems like a big job but it’s necessary to kill head lice in your home.

  • Wash all bedding and clothing that infested person has been in contact with in hot water. After washing run all items in the drier at the hottest temperature setting for 30 minutes.
  • Place stuffed animals and pillows which cannot be cleaned in a tightly sealed plastic bag for 48 hours.
  • Boil all hair care items combs, brushes; hair clips to kill any lice or eggs, or place them in a bag for 48 hours.
  • Vacuum your home thoroughly, especially any fabric surfaces
  • Using bug bombs or pesticides in closed areas of your home is not recommended

An important part of keeping lice away is telling your friends and relative so that everyone has the opportunity to kill those pesky bugger and not reinfest anyone else. We are aware admitting to have head lice may be shameful but we are here to help! We believe education is the key for everyone to understand that lice happens for everyone, regardless of race, economic background or type of hair. Life happens, lice happens too.

 

 

Are Smartphones Spreading Head Lice?

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Are Smartphones Spreading Head Lice? Children who use smart phones seem to be twice as likely to contract head lice. Smart phones don’t cause head lice, of course, but your child is likely to contract it as they huddle around phone and tablet screens to watch videos or take selfies. The close contact makes it very easy for head lice to spread and jump from head to head.

Studies about smartphones and head lice

Experts are worried it is leading to a number of increase cases being reported. Studies performed in the UK have found 62 percent of children with a smart phone picked up head lice compared with just 30 percent of those who didn’t own technology (more about study). The increase in older teenagers is rising as well touching heads to pose for selfies is becoming more and more popular and making the lice problem, a widespread issue.

Prevention and cure

There is no easy prevention when it comes to head lice but awareness is key. Parents need to be prepared by regularly checking their children’s head for head lice as only about 30 percent of people actually itch their head, so sometimes it’s not obvious. Girls are definitely more at risk than boys as lice cannot jump so they have to be transmitted through head touching.

At LCA San Diego, we suggest children keep their hair up and avoid taking too many selfies to help stop the spread of lice.  If the inevitable happens…DON’T PANIC! We are here to help. Give us a call and we can schedule you to come in and get treated same day.

Create an Emergency Lice Kit

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Create an Emergency Lice Kit

Head lice is such a common thing these days with millions of people being affected with head lice every year. Sometimes it becomes inevitable that you or your child will come into contact with someone who has head lice. It seems that at least once a week most schools are sending a letter home indicating that someone in the classroom has been confirmed to have head lice. Nowadays the burden to screen children is on the parents, to determine if they too have lice. If you know that you or your child has been around someone who has lice what should you do?

What’s in your emergency kit?

When you receive a note home or a call from a fellow parent indicating that their child has lice there are a few steps you should take to make sure your child doesn’t get lice as well. The first thing to do is to check your child. Using a nit comb will make this job a lot easier! just by running the comb through your child’s hair you will be able to see if you pull out any nits or a louse. If after you have checked you don’t see any then its time to turn into prevention mode.

What products should you use or repel lice?

There are many misconceptions as to what will actually prevent you from getting lice, however, LCA San Diego offers a system that will protect you and your child.

Step one is to use the shampoo and after following the directions on the bottle towel dry your child’s hair.

Step two is to apply the preventative spray after styling your hair so that the smell would repel head lice.

Step three is to apply the topical rinse once a week which will need to be left on the hair for 20 minutes.

This three step process will drastically reduce your child’s likelihood of contracting lice. To know more about our products click here.

 

How to help your child overcome bullying

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How to help your child overcome bullying

Bullying is something that a lot of children endure in school or on the playground and something that can be a cause of this is head lice. Millions of children and their families have been affected by lice but even so people feel embarrassed or worried when they discover that they have lice. Lice can be a hard thing to explain but its important to tell your children that its completely normal to be affected by lice and that most likely their friends have had it before as well.

How common is Lice?

Any estimated 10 million people a year get lice most of whom are children. It’s important to tell your child that they probably got lice from someone else which means they are not alone and they are not the source of it. 90% of cases are contracted by head to head contact or close contact from another person. Lice is easily transferable and is highly contagious so if you do have lice its important to get it treated right away.

Information is key to understand head lice and normalize it so that together we can break the stigma of head lice and have it not be a cause of bullying. What should you know?

How to treat it?

The majority of lice these days have become resistant to the over the counter treatments and with the over the counter treatments you have to do it multiple times and spend hours combing out every tiny nit or egg out of the hair.

When you are affected with lice we are here to help you at LCA San Diego our treatment is non-toxic and has no pesticides making it completely safe for your family. Even better it is 99% effective with a one time treatment we will eradicate the lice.

How do lice spread?

Mostly through head to head contact. It can also be present in fabrics (clothing, furniture, etc) or on hair accessories. Make sure you catch infestations right away and take care of your environment as much as your child”s hair.

Lice clinics of America has information on cleaning your surroundings to achieve best results!

What are some healthy and easy snack ideas for kids?

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What are some healthy and easy snack ideas for kids?

Life can get so busy with soccer practice, homework, games on the weekends and let’s not forget karate and basketball. It can be so hard to feed your kids healthy snacks especially when you are always on the go. We know how hard it can be especially if your kids are picky eaters and don’t want to eat carrots or celery sticks. Let us give you some fun and easy ideas to make your snacks something your kids can’t resist.

Let’s start with snacks for the day time.

Slicing an apple to create mini apple pizzas are great because the kids can put peanut butter or apple sauce on them and top these apple pizza’s with granola or other types of fruit. Ritz crackers or Triskets are a great start to any snack time. You can easily add some cream cheese or jam to these crackers to spice things up a bit. You can also use an artichoke dip or a cheese dip to help add some extra flavor to this bite size treats. Carrots are something we wish all of our kids would eat but without all of the extra sauces they like to use but if you slice whole carrots into chips and bake them, add a little salt and you have a healthy alternative to your regular potato chips.

 

Dessert here we come.

All children love dessert and always ask for that scoop of ice-cream or brownie after their dinner, but what if there was a way to make a tasty dessert but just a bit healthier. A banana boat is a wonderful way to start off, slice a banana long way and put some chocolate or some marshmallows in the middle. Maybe your kids like something cold in their tummies well try some frozen yogurt. Pull out some ice trays and fill them with yogurt and add some fruit in the middle maybe a blueberry or strawberry.

When your child has lice, who do you tell?

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When your child has lice, who do you tell?

We know it can be an overwhelming feeling to find out that your child has lice, along with the uncertainty of how to treat it or how to clean your house. Luckily, LCA San Diego is here to help with treatment and follow up instructions for your home. You can come into one of our clinics with lice and leave in an hour, happy and lice free. But even though we are here to help treat you and your family with lice it can still be difficult to clean your house, car and furthermore, decide who to tell or not.

When your child has lice many people wonder where they got it or who gave it to them? It can be extremely difficult to ascertain who gave your child lice however you can do a few things to make sure no one else is affected by your child.

Lice sometimes can be thought of as embarrassing or have negative connotations. It can be perceived as if your child is unclean, however this conclusion is not true. Lice is just as common as the flu or the common cold; and millions of families are affected by this every year. To help do your part to keep the lice from spreading, we would recommend that you contact all of your children’s close friends especially if they have had any sleep overs recently or borrowed any of their friends clothes.

Additionally, any sports where they might share a helmet or a hat or after school activities that might involve close contact with other children. It can be hard to make this call but think if your child’s friend had lice you would want to know so you can check your child. We recommend that you call your child’s school, family friends or anyone else that may have been in close contact with your child.

Normalizing head lice is a job that we need help with and you along with our community are key to help us out. At LCA San Diego we have friendly staff that is here to help you understand head lice, treat it and more importantly, not make you feel ashamed for it!

Can my pet get head lice?

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Can your pet get head lice?

When you find out that your children or yourself have lice it can be an overwhelming experience with so many questions. The laundry along with cleaning the rest of the house, the brushes, the hair ties…. You may wonder if you will have to treat your pet with something as well. Luckily, pets cannot get lice. Cats, Dogs even birds are not susceptible to catching human head lice. Human head lice is a different species and can’t be transmitted to animals so if your child has lice and the family dog or cat jumps on them don’t worry, they cannot get lice.

Lice is however a very contagious issue and even though its not life threatening and doesn’t carry and illnesses or diseases it can be very uncomfortable if left untreated. Lice can cause extreme itchiness and if you scratch at your head or neck it can cause your skin to become very irritated and red. There can also be bumps and bite marks on the nape of your neck. When your scratch a lot you can cause those bites to bleed or become open wounds which can get infected.

Its important that when you are aware that you or a family member has lice that you get it treated right away not only for your own health but lice is very contagious so it can easily be spread to other members of the family or friends.

LCA San Diego is here to help and will treat you and your family quickly and easily. We do an FDA cleared heated air treatment that is all natural and 99% effective. When lice enters your house hold LCA San Diego is here to remove it.

Behavioral problems may be linked to chemical lice treatments

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Behavioral problems may be linked to chemical lice treatments. Does your child suffer from behavioral problems? It may be linked to Lice Treatments.

Behavioral Problems

Behavioral problems are something so many children and parents struggle with today, whether its getting that call from school that their child has been acting up in class or having their child be singled out because of their excessive talking in after school activities. Childhood is such a difficult time and something that might be making it harder for you child are the Lice treatments you may have been using on them. Chemicals that are found in many of the Lice products and common pesticides have been found to cause behavioral problems in your child’s life.

Chemicals in Lice Treatments

Pyrethroids which are a synthetic chemicals found in many pesticides and Lice removal treatments have been linked to causing social problems in children developing by age six. This is especially true with pregnant women who are exposed to this chemical which is most commonly used in crop insecticides but also utilized in treatment of lice and scabies in humans as well as some mosquito repellents.

These chemicals work by damaging the nerves of the insects however researchers suspect that this actions may also be affecting the development of a child’s brain. Scientists found that after testing thousands of pregnant women who were exposed to Pyrethroid when they returned to examine their children they found that approximately 10% of these children suffered from “internalizing” behaviors which include fearfulness and social withdrawal as well as bullying.

These dangerous and harmful chemicals are affecting the neurochemical signaling in the brain which is why LCA San Diego uses a more natural approach. Our medical device is FDA cleared and uses a machine to blow heated air, followed by a full rinse and topical rinse application our full treatment is completely non-toxic and has no pesticides. We highly recommend everyone to look at the ingredients prior to purchase of anything that has the potential to harm either you or your child. If you have questions or doubts you can rely on LCA San Diego to help you with any lice related problem, we are here to help!

What do you do if you think you have lice?

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What do you do if you think you have lice?

When you start to feel itchy or notice some specs in your hair what should you do? The first step is to screen your head. You can part the hair in small sections to inspect and look for lice eggs (nits). If you want professional help you can call us! We perform a thorough check and comb through each strand of hair to delineate between what is lice and what is dandruff. After this screening is completed the Lice technician will inform you if you have Lice or not and then offer a variety of treatments for you.

Treatment Options

The Lice Clinic of America’s Signature Treatment is the most effective and recommended for everyone who is affected by lice. This detailed 3-step lice removal process has been proven to fully resolve the lice problem. The first step is the FDA-cleared medical device which uses heated air to dehydrate the lice and their eggs (nits). The second step is to perform a pain free comb out to remove all of the dead debris left behind by the heat treatment. Finally the last step is to apply a topical rinse that is completely non-toxic and pesticide free. After all of these steps are completed you will leave our offices lice free.

What’s next?

LCA San Diego will not only treat lice in the office but will give your meticulous instructors as to how to help clean your house as well. Now that you are lice free you want to make sure you stay that way by deep cleaning your living environment. Washing and drying your clothes on high heat as well as bagging all non-washable items for 2-3 days will ensure that you will remain lice free. Lice clinics of America is here to help you and your family to overcome lice both inside and outside your home.

How to screen for Head Lice?

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How to screen for Head Lice?

How to screen for head lice is probably one of the most common asked questions we hear at our clinics. You are supposed to screen your child once a week between the ages of 6-11 but, what’s the best way to do it?

There are different ways to properly screen for head lice:

Sectioning the hair

Sectioning the hair in small pieces will help you be more precise at making a right diagnostic. We want to start on one side of the hair and use a wood stick, fine comb or pen to section the hair. We will start from top to bottom creating vertical lines, and looking for nits (lice eggs).

Looking for moving louse will be very difficult as they crawl and move really fast. Instead we look for their eggs which are white-brownish close to the scalp, attached to the hair shaft and look like a small sesame seed.

Once we have visually examined the first section, we create another vertical line with the aid of the tooth pick about an inch apart of the first one and we examine again top to bottom. We repeat this until we have gone from side to side. Then, for an extra layer of caution, we can re-examine the areas that are usually the most humid where head lice will lay more eggs: behind the ears, on the bottom of the neck and the crown of the head.

How to screen for head lice? Sectioning

Using a Lice Comb

Using a Lice comb is a very effective way to screen for head lice. Please make sure every time you use the comb, there is no debris (especially if there was an infestation previously) so that we don’t confuse ourselves with dead and old eggs.

Start combing the hair – dry or wet- from top to bottom. We recommend to comb the hair on top of a white sink or a clear colored furniture so that we can see clearly if anything falls off. In addition, have a white paper towel handy to wipe the comb every so often and see if there’s anything coming out.

How to screen for head lice? Lice comb

If you see nits or lice don’t hesitate to call us so we can help you find the best treatment option for your child. We have a treatment option for every budget and are professionals when it comes to head lice removal. At LCA San Diego we will kill head lice and their eggs in just one treatment using our medical device, the ! Find out more at: lcasandiego.com/treatment