Post Lice Treatment: What to Do After Lice Treatment?

Parents frequently reach out to us before lice treatment, sharing their frustration after multiple attempts to eliminate lice. They've tried everything — repeated lice treatments, hot water machine washes for clothes, fumigant sprays for furniture, and sealing stuffed animals in plastic bags.

Yet, despite their efforts, their child's hair still harbors live lice and eggs. Recurrent head lice can lead to skin damage from excessive scratching, disrupted sleep, and even bullying at school. Often, the instructions fom lice medications and school nurses fall short. Here are some practical tips to ensure you stay lice-free after treatment.

How Long Does It Take to Get Rid of Lice?

While lice treatment can kill lice in just a few hours, it is necessary to remove nits with a special lice comb after lice treatment to keep the problem from coming back. Effective follow-up includes combing a prescribed number of times for about 3 weeks.

With LiceDoctors head lice treatment, we'll leave you with customizable follow-up instructions that keep the combing to a minimum. We'll also show you how to eliminate the need for washing all the clothes, bedding, pillows, and towels in the house in hot water.

After Lice Treatment: What to Do

Congratulations on successfully eliminating live lice with your treatment! You've effectively interrupted the lice life cycle, indicating that the problem isn't active or worsening. However, it's crucial to address what to do after head lice treatment to ensure the infestation is fully resolved.

Continue Checking for Lice and Nits

There are no lice treatment products that kill nits 100% in one treatment. Even the best prescription chemicals used to treat lice only kill about 75% of the eggs, and most lice shampoo or essential oils will not kill any eggs. The very next step to take after lice treatment is to use a lice comb to get rid of lice that survived the treatment and all nits from the infected person. You'll spend a couple of hours the first time, more for very long hair, but subsequent comb-outs get faster. The combination of topical treatment that can kill lice plus combing is very effective.

Try Low-Dose Antihistamines

Just like mosquito bites itch long after the insect leaves, the skin on the scalp, neck, and behind the ears may still itch after you get rid of lice. Some medications used in lice treatments can cause further irritation. A normal over-the-counter antihistamine can reduce scalp itching and redness associated with allergic reactions to lice. Follow the directions for dosage from your doctor or on the packaging instructions

Restore Moisture with Deep Conditioner or Oil

Post-head lice treatment, your hair deserves some extra TLC. Conditioner is not only essential for detangling but also for restoring moisture and vitality to your strands. Embrace the power of conditioner to aid in your hair's recovery and overall well-being. The conditioner works wonders by soothing the scalp and replenishing moisture in damaged hair.

While concerns about lice recurrence may take precedence, neglecting to provide additional hydration and comfort to the scalp could prove regrettable. Despite lice treatment products being generally safe, they may still result in side effects. If you’ve opted for an all-natural lice treatment like that of LiceDoctors’, this is unlikely to be a problem.

Furthermore, coating your hair with a nourishing leave-in conditioner or oil creates an inhospitable environment for any lingering lice. A lice-repellent conditioner infused with essential oils offers a safe and effective year-round defense against these persistent pests.

And remember, for expert lice treatment services, trust LiceDoctors. Our approach, which includes the use of olive oil, ensures thorough and gentle eradication of lice, leaving your hair and scalp feeling refreshed and lice-free.

Monitor for Symptoms of Infection

The body's reaction to lice bites is often an itchy rash on the scalp, parts of the neck close to the scalp, and behind the ears, where head lice live. Because both an infestation and treatments can cause this symptom, having lice often involves a lot of scratching. The nails can break the skin, allowing it to become infected. Symptoms of an infection include local swelling, redness, sensitivity, warmth, and possibly even fever or lethargy. Seek a doctor's appointment when these dangerous symptoms appear after lice treatment.

Can Lice Reoccur After Treatment?

Battling lice can be frustrating, especially when they keep coming back. Understanding why treatments sometimes fail is key to winning the war against these persistent pests. Here are the top reasons lice reoccur and what to do after lice treatment to finally bid them farewell for good:

1. Resistance to Chemicals: Some lice develop resistance to common lice medicines, making treatment less effective.
2. Incomplete Removal: Nits (lice eggs) may have been missed during combing, allowing them to hatch and continue the infestation.
3. Inadequate Suffocation: If using oil-based treatments, insufficient application may not effectively suffocate all the bugs.
4. Survival on Personal Items: Lice can survive on personal items like brushes or bedding, leading to reinfestation if these items are not properly treated or isolated.

Don't let lice disrupt your life. By addressing these common pitfalls in treatment and knowing what to do if you find live lice after treatment, you can achieve a lice-free scalp. For persistent problems, turn to professional services like LiceDoctors to ensure peace of mind. Say goodbye to lice for good!

How to Prevent Lice After Exposure: Best Practices

If you just now found lice on your kid, and others in the family don't have symptoms yet, now is the time to take preventative measures to prevent other children, as well as adults, from getting a lice infestation later. Here are some tips.

Make Sure You Follow the Instructions Fully

Your LiceDoctors technician will remove lice and eggs from the hair, then leave you with a detailed aftercare plan, including what to do after lice exposure for the rest of the children and adults in the home. Since head lice won't survive long without a blood meal, we've come up with some tricks and tips for stopping the spread by oiling the hair instead of cleaning the house. With our method, there's no need to vacuum, launder, or clean after treatment. This aftercare plan has worked for over 20 years on more than 600,000 clients. Really!

Wash All Clothing, Towels, and Bed Linens

Head lice live in hair, not personal items. Still, wash items that will touch someone's unprotected hair within the next 2 days in hot water in the washing machine (or warm water plus high heat dry).

Other items that can't take high heat like stuffed animals can go in the freezer overnight so any head lice and nits die. If you follow the directions that your LiceDoctors technician gives you for every human head with hair on it in the household, this step is technically unnecessary.

Treat Hair Accessories, Combs, and Brushes

Other items that come into close contact with hair, like hair brushes, combs, hats, and hair accessories can be soaked in 130° hot water for 10 minutes, then immediately used on another person.

Hair dryers and heat tools are hard to sanitize, so ideally set them aside and don't touch them for 2 days. For general head lice prevention, the best practice is not to share combs, brushes, or hats (or other items that touch the hair and aren't washed regularly) at all.

Take Precautions When Going to Public Places

It is impractical to avoid all situations where you might get head lice. But to maximize safety, you may wonder, where do you get lice from most often? Be cautious in any environment where your hair or head is going to be close to another person's hair or head. This may include places like theaters, performance venues, public transit, and crowded hallways.

Keep Hair Tied Up

If you do find yourself in one of these higher-risk situations, the wise parent combs their child's hair into a tight ballet bun and coats it with a leave-in conditioner or hair spray. This is one of the best hairstyles to prevent lice. Any head lice that manage to get on that head have a harder time finding clean hair to latch onto and may die before they can feed on blood or reproduce.

Best Thing to Put on the Hair Post Lice Treatment

Immediately after you treat lice, you'll want to leave the hair coated in oil to prevent re-infestation. Talk with your LiceDoctors technician at your appointment about how our aftercare plan prevents re-infestation 99.6% of the time.

Once the immediate threat has passed (3 weeks after lice treatment), you can use lice repellant spray to protect the hair in higher-risk situations. The scent of the natural essential oils in these products repels head lice safely. Though effective during infestation, we don’t recommend prolonged use of head lice shampoo.

Things to Avoid After Lice Treatment

Battling a lice infestation can be a daunting task, and your efforts don’t end with the treatment. To ensure those pesky critters are gone for good, it's crucial to follow some key guidelines. Here’s a quick rundown of what to avoid after lice treatment and what to do after lice treatment to keep your scalp lice-free and your family safe from re-infestation:

1. Head-to-Head Contact: Particularly in the immediate aftermath of treatment, avoid close contact where heads may touch. This includes hugging friends or family members who might be infested. While the risk is reduced if residual medicine or oil is present in your hair, it's still wise to err on the side of caution.
2. Overusing Treatments: Resist the temptation to apply more lice treatment medicine once live lice are eliminated. Overuse not only fails to address nits but also increases the likelihood of adverse effects. Moreover, it contributes to the growing issue of chemical resistance in head lice, rendering conventional treatments less effective over time.
3. Avoid Over-the-Counter Lice Treatments: Products containing pyrethrin and permethrins, once relied upon for lice treatment, are no longer as effective due to genetic mutations in lice. Natural treatments, when administered correctly, can often outperform these outdated options. It's time to reconsider the efficacy of traditional over-the-counter remedies.
4. Using Heat Styling Tools: Post-treatment, refrain from using heat styling tools on your hair. Not only do these tools fail to eliminate lice on the scalp safely, but they can also cause burns if mishandled. Additionally, lice treatments can already lead to dryness of the hair and scalp, and the added heat exacerbates this issue, potentially causing damage to your hair.
5. Selective Treatment of Family Members: Only apply lice treatment to family members who have confirmed cases of live lice. Indiscriminate treatment of all family members, especially with over-the-counter products, is unnecessary and may contribute to the ineffectiveness of the treatment.

Staying lice-free requires vigilance even after treatment. By steering clear of these common mistakes and knowing what to do if your head still itches after lice treatment, you can protect yourself and your loved ones from a recurring infestation. Remember, the right precautions and effective methods make all the difference in winning the battle against lice. Keep these tips in mind, and enjoy a healthy, lice-free scalp!

Contact LiceDoctors If You Suspect a Reinfestation

These tiny sesame seed-sized parasites cause parents disproportionately huge stress. When you've "done it all" and the head lice seem to be returning, don't get down on yourself. There are so many head lice treatment methods out there that just don't work reliably.

Many moms and dads choose to outsource the time-consuming and creepy-crawly task of lice removal to a professional. This is why LiceDoctors exists! If you suspect a reinfestation, call us at 800-224-2537 to speak with a dispatcher who can book an appointment today for guaranteed safe and natural lice treatment (without the need to clean, vacuum, and launder), and get back to living your life.