Illustrations Guillaume Cornet, commissioned by The Hairforce - Lice Assassins

January 2010

WHEN NITS HAPPEN…

Combs at the ready, hoover in hand, meet the lice assassins who are determined to free the nation’s hair from the nastiness of nits……

The environs of Regent’s Park in London are famed for having a wealth of wildlife and creatures great and small. From apes and aphids and wombats to weasels, the confines of London Zoo is all about animal conservation and welfare as creatures are lovingly cared for and nurtured. Yet, just a stone’s throw away, in a pretty tree-lined street, there lurks a legion of rather less welcome critters. Barely visible to the naked eye, these pesky nuisances are the bane of many a child’s – and parent’s – life. And behind the doors of a stunning family home, a team of expertly trained technicians, dubbed The Hairforce, are busily setting about their daily task – combs at the ready, spray guns in their pockets and hoovers in hand. The logo on their pristine white lab coats says it all: “Nasty with Nits, Lethal with Lice.”

Far from clinical, the room in which the so-called lice assassins conduct business oozes boudoir chic. There is fuchsia pink paisley paper on the walls, a lovely mirrored armoire and a huge black chandelier that gives an air that’s more pampering hair salon than head-lice removal service. Young clients are treated to mauve leather massage chairs, plus a choice a portable DVD player, Nintendo DS, magazines and children’s books to entertain while the serious business of nit-picking is taking place.

The Hairforce is the brainchild of Dee Wright, a former strategic planner for an advertising agency and a mother of two, who decided to set up her unusual business from home. “This used to be my dining room,” she says. “I used to have dinner parties here, and now we have nit parties!”

I wish I could say that I was only visiting in the capacity of investigative journalist, but alas, the truth was that we had an infestation. Times three. Looking back, the signs had been there, but, being novices who were thankfully thus far uninitiated in the heady world of nits, I was mistakenly putting all the head scratching down to a change in shampoo brands. It was only when my seven-year-old daughter, Lauren, scratched her head and came across a fully-grown creature that we realised that she, her four-year-old brother, Jack, and myself were all suffering from an unwelcome visitation.

Nits are a fact of life – in fact, practically a rite of passage – for most children. It’s what every parent dreads. An outbreak of head lice in the classroom heralds diligent wet-combing and nit-picking (the head lice are the fully-grown creatures, the nits are the hatched egg cases). More than a mere inconvenience, the effects of a severe infestation can also be debilitating. “We see children with runny noses, they’re tired, they’re run down with flu-like symptoms, their concentrating is not what it should be – all from having lice,” says Dee. “If your child is itching a lot, she will invariably be itching in her sleep, so she is never going to get that deep proper sleep that we need; in turn, that will affect their concentration and learning. Head lice are blood-sucking parasites and they’re the reason the word ‘lousy’ is part of the English language.”

It’s estimated that head lice now infest nearly half of the nation’s four- to eleven- year olds every year. What’s more, the sneaky little things have evolved to build immunity against chemical warfare, meaning parents find it increasingly difficult to get rid of them. According to NHS guidelines, wet combing with a fine-tooth comb is the most effective method of removal – not vinegar or mayonnaise, which are a couple of the old wives’ tales.

The downside is that wet combing is pain-staking and tedious, especially for children who are loathe to have their hair combed at the best of times. It was this that prompted Dee to come up with the idea of creating an environment that was fun rather than boring, welcoming rather than intimidating and, above all, highly effective.

The treatment goes something like this. Firstly, the hair is methodically sectioned off and tied in little bunches with purple hairbands. Jack looked decidedly cute, a bit like Pebbles from ‘The Flinstones’ and funnily enough, seemed quite happy admiring his rather unconventional look in the mirror. I, on the other hand, looked more like some crazed schoolgirl extra from Britney’s Baby One More Time video. After this, each section is hoovered using a specially customised combed nozzle, starting at the scalp and working the length of the hair. The cooling air and gently massaging technique was actually quite pleasant, though it is quite funny to see the technicians stopping every so often to open up the specially designed attachment in the hose that catches anything suspect. Then it’s on with the magnifying goggles to inspect their trappings: is that a head louse, a nit… or just dandruff? After the entire head has been hoovered, it’s time to literally set about nit-picking. Each section of the hair is spritzed with Aveda conditioner, before being combed through with a fine-tooth comb and any suspect speck meticulously removed from the hair using tweezers.

Every finding is jotted down in a notebook and a nit count totted up at the end of the session. Our first session ended thus: Lauren 14 lice (6 adults and 8 babies) and 265 nits (eggs); Jack, 7 lice (1 adult, 4 mediums, 2 babies) and 28 nits; Me, 2 lice (medium) and 17 nits. “The process is about getting the lice out and removing the nits as they come through,” says Dee. “Some of these will hatch – babies and then mediums – but the timings mean that they are unable to get to adulthood and reproduce.” It usually takes three visits, within the space of ten days, to get rid of them, with each session costing £40.

Although head lice are a minor ailment, they are never a pleasant discovery. “My daughter, Dani, used to get head lice so often, and we could never seem to get rid of them completely,” says Amanda Coplans. “She hated the chemical treatment, because it smelt so horrible. She used to run away when she saw me with a bottle!” it was after Amanda’s playground discussion with a friend, who was an aromatherapist, that they came up with a lotion that contained a blend of aromatherapy oils. It worked – and it smelt nice, too. “My daughter half-jokingly said ‘you should sell this at school,’ and we thought what a great idea. It became our Nitty Gritty Head Lice Aromatherapy Solution.”

Amanda was now also on a mission to find the perfect fine-tooth comb for wet combing, a quest which led her to two clever fathers in Argentina, who were former ship engineers. Their design became the Nitty Gritty NitFree Comb, which has now sold over a million units; it’s available free on prescription, too. So what’s so unique about its design? “The micro-spiral groove on each tooth runs smoothly along the hair strands and gently removes any lice without damaging the hair,” says Amanda. “It works really quickly and easily removes not just head lice, but also un-hatched eggs and nits.” Legions of parents swear by the Nitty Gritty for its efficacy (including Jonathan Ross, whose own effusive testimonial can be found on the website) and it’s the perfect piece of kit to keep infestations at bay. Meanwhile, back at The Hairforce, we were visiting for the third time in nine days and eagerly awaiting the verdict: Lauren, 0 lice, 9 mostly empty nits; Jack 0 lice, 14 nits; Me: 0 lice, 6 nits. Lauren and I were officially pronounced clean, but because Jack had more than ten nits, he was booked in for a complimentary check a few days later where he had no lice and one nit. Of course, there’s no guarantee that we won’t suffer from head lice again, but we departed from The Hairforce with a common farewell: “Thanks for everything,” I said, “And I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I hope we never see you again.” “Pleasure,” replied Dee. “Good to see three more nit- and lice- free people in the world.”

In an attempt to make this a reality, we have also vowed to include a once-a-week wet-combing session into our bath routines. But you know, it’s not all bad news. “Nits are a nuisance,” says Amanda, “but all children can get them, and most do. I always like to remind parents of one simple fact: to catch head lice, you need friends. Isn’t that more important for your child?”

THE FACTS OF LICE

What are head lice? Lice are wingless,  greyish – white insects with flattened, elongated bodies and oval heads. They are 1.5mm to 3mm long.

Where can head lice be found? Head lice spend their life clinging tightly onto our hair as soon as they hatch. They tend to stay close to our scalps, so they can feed on our blood; they cannot survive for long once removed from the head.

How do you get head lice? Head lice move from one host to another during head-to-head contact. When your hair is touching someone else’s, even for a few moments, they can migrate. This is why they are prevalent amongst primary school children.

What are the signs? Often, there is no sign of infestation until nits- empty egg cases – start to become visible as they grow out in the hair. Not everyone itches. Use a fine-tooth comb to do a careful visual check for nits, eggs and head lice once or twice a week. Do this when you wash and condition the hair. If hair is dry, lice can move rapidly away from the area being examined.

How can you detect lice and nits? It’s easiest with conditioner on the hair, as this immobilises lice. Section the hair and comb from the scalp downwards. After each stroke, check the comb for live lice. Fully grown head lice are the size of a small ant, but newly hatched eggs can be as small as a pinhead. If you inspect dry hair, do so in good light. Look for eggs glued to the roots close to the scalp. If you find eggs or nits attached to the hair, then check all family members and use a comb to treat everyone who has lice, nits or eggs in their hair.

What is the difference between nits and eggs?

‘Live’ head louse eggs are glued to an individual hair strand as soon as they are laid. Nits are empty egg cases, which remain glued on the hair as it grows after the nymph lice have hatched. Nits are often the first visible sign of a head-lice infestation.

Where are the eggs found?

Female head lice attach each egg to the root of an individual hair strand close to the scalp, so that when they hatch, they are close to their food source. Eggs found more than 1cm from the scalp will be nits, which remain glued on and grow out as our hair grows.

What do the eggs look like? They are about the size of a pinhead, white to cream in colour and they look like a tiny teardrop fastened to the hair shaft.

Do lice prefer clean or dirty hair? They’re not fussy, but it is easier to move in clean hair. Lice are tough, resourceful creatures. You can’t wash them out, and there is no scientific evidence to indicate that either washing or not washing the hair will prevent an infestation.

Do they prefer boys or girls? Girls tend to spend more time than boys in head-to-head contact. They usually have longer hair too, which can make it easier for head lice to move from head to head. It’s rare for fathers to get head lice, so some experts believe they don’t like testosterone.

To view Junior Magazine go to: www.juniormagazine.co.uk (more…)

23rd November 2009

7.30 pm

The Head lice Terminators!

Fantastic coverage by BBC 1’s Inside Out team.  They also interviewed our ally, Dr Ian Burgess, who showed how ineffective the head lice treatments are.

This is the text of the show:

Since the 1980s, the number of children with head lice in London has risen by as much as 1000%.

With many bugs becoming resilient to the chemicals traditionally used to treat them, combating head lice is turning into a headache for many parents.

But one London mum has turned the fight against nits into a business opportunity.

Armed with her trusty vacuum, entrepreneur Dee Wright’s nit-busting business has been running successfully for two years now.

Inspired by a press cutting from a New York magazine several years ago, Dee set up her own nit-busting company from her home in London.

BBC Inside Out presenter Mike Dilger investigates the head lice terminators.

Just imagine if there were a treatment that didn’t involve any chemicals on the scalp or parents having to pull a comb through their children’s hair. Well, there is. The Hairforce – Lice Assassins. It’s the brainchild of business entrepreneur, Dee Wright. ‘I came up with the idea about three and a half years ago, I saw a two line article in New York Time Out about a company in the States that is a nit and head lice removal service, so I had a good look at that and I just thought, I can do that so much better.’ Two years later, in Dee’s front room, the company’s thriving. ‘Lucy, what are you doing to Amira’s hair? So I’ve divided it into bunches which allows us to go through more methodically and make sure we’ve cleared every part of the head. And next I’m going to take this special attachment we have on the hoover with a nit-comb in the end and then I’ll go through which will take out any lice that might be there. Then we apply an organic and enzyme-free leave-in conditioner, nit comb very thoroughly and then a Lice Assassin will nit pick following the nit combing so she’ll use her medical magnifying visors and we have lighting like dentist lighting so that they can see absolutely what is going on in the hair. It’s the only treatment that guarantees to rid your hair of lice completely. But, at £120 a go, it’s not cheap. This is the tenth time Marcus has been infested. ‘In Rugby season in scrums, it’s very easy for them to crawl across to other people’s heads. So, how have head lice become so resilient? I met up with scientist Ian Burgess who’s an expert when it comes to these pests. ‘So, what have you got here?’ ‘I’ve got some lice here, come and take a look. These are first stage nits, those two, and then we’ve got adults – these are females. ‘And how long from the egg hatching to a fully fledged adult?’ ‘From the egg hatch to an adult that’s able to lay eggs, we’re looking at ten days.’ ‘So, Ian, time for a bit of science, we’ve got some head lice here and four different treatments. So, if we make a tiny drop on each louse… ‘We tested four of the top-selling treatments to see just how effective they are at killing head lice.’  ‘They have survived everything we’ve thrown against them.’ ‘In some ways to be admired.’ ‘Oh very much so. You have to take your hat off to them as they say.’

Log on to Inside Out London and check out their programmes:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/

Standing in for Vanessa was Gabby Roslin.  Having experienced nits and head lice in the home with her own children, Gabby was particularly interested in understanding how The Hairforce – Lice Assassins operate and any intelligence on the beasts….

GR: We’re talking nits, how to get rid of them, tell me your nit stories

GR: Now, the other thing we’re talking about this morning is lice and nits. And good morning to Dee Wright. You’re founder of Hairforce

DW: Morning

GR: Now, tell me about Hairforce! The Hairforce – Lice Assassins is a service. We clear nits and head lice infestations for you. So we do all the work, we do it all by hand we don’t use any chemicals or treatments and we remove all the lice and all the nits. And if we’re working on you, we need to see you three times four days apart to break the cycle of development that you’re inevitably struggling with

GR: Can we eradicate lice, completely?

DW: Well I think, you know, well I’ve got a business based on nits and head lice being out there but we can certainly, certainly reduce the issue.

GR: Now, we’ve had it in our house as one of my daughters has…

DW: Congratulations

GR: Yes, one of them brought it home and I did everything, I did the conditioner, and I saw the eggs, but we also saw the creepy crawlies and I have to say, that wasn’t nice and my eight year old really didn’t like actually seeing the things crawling around, and then we realised, we all had it. But for people who haven’t had it, how can we identify a nit?

DW: Well, a lot of people sort of rely on seeing if somebody itches but 53% of people are totally asymptomatic, they do not itch.

GR: Really?

DW: So you can’t just rely on that. What we always recommend to all the parents that we see is that they do a weekly check so that at the end of the school week take some time with your child, gossip about the week, use it in a positive way but then check the hair and you have to be quite systematic at checking it, go around very carefully and look to see if there are any black specks for a start on the scalp and that’s a good way of thinking about it, if you see any tiny little things…

GR: But they were white, I remember them being a grey/white actually in the hair

DW: Are you talking about the lice or the nits – the eggs?

GR: The eggs

DW: Yeah, when eggs are empty, when the nits have hatched they’ll go a sort of white

GR: Whoo! I’ve started itching, isn’t it funny? Ooh

DW: Then you can tell they are empty, look for black specks and then also you’re looking for anything that’s attached to the hair and it’ll be fresh laid eggs are very very close to the scalp they’re at the base of the hair. Hair grows about a centimetre a week so if you’re looking for also nits that are further down the hair then, this shows that the infestation has been there quite awhile. A lot of those would have hatched by the time they’re further down the hair anyway. But you’re looking to see if there’s anything attached to the hair you can blow at it to see if it doesn’t move when you blow, then it could well be a nit and then you need to pull it with your fingernail and see if it comes off.

GR: And if there are eggs, there are lice. Is that right?

DW: Not necessarily, you can have a lot of eggs or some eggs sitting in there and you won’t be able to find the perpetrator, the live louse who’s laid them. It could have crawled off, it could have been that, when you nit combed you killed it but you didn’t really see it because you know, if you put lots of conditioner in, sometimes it obscures your view. Or, it could have died and just fallen off at some stage. They last for about 30 days.

GR: Dee, when you go to dinner parties or parties, does the same thing happen that’s happening right here? I can see six people sitting around, and everybody scratching their heads!

DW: Laughs

DW: I have presented to bald bankers and they all itch. So yeah, I mean there’s that whole psychosomatic side about lice where everybody itches when they think about it and talk about it and you have to get beyond that.

GR: Now, if you don’t get rid of them in your head, can they cause, you know, a lot of damage? They bite, don’t they?

DW: Well, there’s this whole thing, which you’ll see in the news and you’ll hear probably discussed on your show today about lice because everybody’s got them, they are pretty much a ubiquitous part of childhood and you know they’re just little parasites and don’t worry about it and some people will not do anything about it because they have that attitude. The thing about lice is that they are bloodsuckers, they are sucking away at your blood and they are moving from host to host and they carry bacteria, they carry germs with them, so you know. Impetigo was eradicated in this country, its back and it’s been back for the last fifteen years…

GR: Really, because of lice?

DW: Because lice carry impetigo, they carry all sorts of things so you’ve got to think quite carefully about it. Am I quite happy to have these blood-suckers on my child moving between well all over place who can come from who knows where. What we see, really interesting when we clear children we see children who have had them for many years who’ve got very heavy infestations, we see a strong change in their behaviour and the parents witness it and the school, will comment on it so if the child has got a nice big infestation of it and its been there for awhile they’ve more often than not got a snivelling nose, they are not sleeping that well, they’re itching in their sleep and all of these things mean that their concentration is affected. There’s a term in the English language called ‘feeling lousy,’ which comes from having lice, long term, infestations of lice and they give you flu-like symptoms so all of these things affect a child’s wellbeing

GR: Oh my word

DW: A child’s wellbeing and then we also listen to children talking to us about how I’ll sit at the back of the class on purpose so nobody can look at my hair

GR: Ohhh

DW: Or I’d never volunteer for the school play, as I don’t want a light on my hair

GR: Oh no

DW: Or you know they get bullied in the playground, they’ll get marginalised as people often know who has got them and they wont invite them on a play-date, they won’t ever get invited to sleep-over’s. So all of these things actually affect the development of your child and that’s worth thinking about, I think.

GR: Now, Dee can I just ask you, so some of the fallacies, is it true, you just mentioned sleep-over’s, that lice don’t live on pillows or bed-sheets and you don’t need to wash them

DW: Well, they need to feed on blood, they need to feed on human blood and it needs to be from the scalp

GR: Right

DW: They like to feed every four hours so if an adult louse crawls off a head and they are genetically programmed to travel, to move to another, to find another host otherwise they are constantly intermingling with their own siblings, if they crawl off 24 – 48 hours it will be dead, it will dehydrate and die because it needs to feed, so

GR: So we should actually change the pillowcases then

DW: Well, what we do, I mean, there’s a whole debate about whether that’s necessary or not. What we say to our clients is that they are paying for our service so let’s be cautious and careful and you never know what the probabilities are, so change the sheets after they see us, after you’ve done a good old clear out, you should give them some fresh sheets, yes

GR: OK

DW: You could get out of bed and something could be sitting there

GR: Well, do you know, I have to say it does sound like we’re talking about creatures from Dr. Who the way we’re talking about living and infestation.

DW: They’re great, fantastic

GR: And, the other thing is, is it true that they don’t go to clean hair?

DW: Oh, no

GR: That’s it yeah, it’s too clean

DW: It’s about blood. They like healthy people, they like healthy blood

GR: But if your hair is too clean, sorry I’m getting it all confused here, that lice like people with dirty hair?

DW: No, they like clean and dirty hair

GR: Oh

DW: Clean hair is easy to hang onto, it’s easier for them, so yeah, we have very well manicured children and a lot of them have got lice

GR: That’s what I meant, yes, but I got it all completely around the wrong way!

DW: But, if someone’s got dirty hair and you know they like high blood sugar levels, which is why they like female blood in particular, they like children as they nice have high blood sugar levels when they’re young they dislike testosterone so you’ll find that daddy’s don’t really get them

GR: Yes, well David didn’t really get them, he was lucky but the three of us did, I have two girls…

DW: You see them on men but they tend to be very low numbers, they want to get off, go back to females, as they are more tasty

GR: Oh yeah Dee, it’s great, so it’s Hairforce – Lice Assassins

DW: The Hairforce – Lice Assassins

GR: And also your story is going to be on Inside Out, this week BBC 1 at 7.30pm on Monday. But Dee it was an absolute delight to talk to you. I think – in the nicest possible way!

DW: Pleasure

GR: It was a delight but we are all scratching now

DW: Next time if you have a problem, bring your kids to us

GR: I hope we don’t have it again, but thank you very much indeed. I could have talked to Dee all morning that was incredible, so much to learn!

DW: Thank you

Check out the Vanessa Feltz show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2005/04/22/radio_vanessa_feltz_feature.shtml

Weekend Family section

Why I spent £400 on getting rid of my children’s head lice

Her kids’ hair was infested with nits but Carla Power found an effective solution – at a price

By Carla Power

I’m writing this to help defray the cost of delousing my daughters. Had anyone told me that I would turn into the kind of woman who spends £414 having nits picked from my children’s heads, I would have told them I had a better chance of winning a Nobel for physics. But last month, I became such a woman, handing over my debit card, again and again, to The Hairforce, a deluxe nit-picking boutique in north London.

Am I stupid, you may ask, or just ridiculously rich? I can rule out the latter. I’m a freelance journalist who is married to a civil servant, so we’re hardly the sort of household with spare hundreds to spend on hair care. When it comes to haircuts, we’re strictly Sunday-nights-with-the-kitchen- scissors folks. Occasionally, I’ll treat myself to a £12 cut at my local salon, but that is pretty much the extent of our household hair budget.

Until last month, that is. My five-year-old, Nicola, had had nits for months. Her older sister, Julia, seven, had been infested with them for the better part of a year, her thick hair so crowded with lice that I could see the hum of nit highways crisscrossing her head from 20 paces, or so I convinced myself. One afternoon, just as I had finished reassuring her teacher that we were nitting religiously, a particularly bold louse scampered across her forehead.

I hadn’t been lying: we were pretty assiduous. I hadn’t the nerve to blast my darlings’ heads with chemicals, so we’d sit, me with my blue plastic nit comb and a bottle of spray conditioner, the two girls in their nightgowns, lulled by a DVD. Lit by the bedside lamp, we looked like some ghastly Victorian tableau. They were patient, but even so, after entire seasons of such nights passed, both girls were in revolt. There were tears, pleadings, scenes. And despite gallons of tea tree oil and lashings of over-the-counter potions, the insects kept going forth and multiplying.

Earlier in the year, I had read about The Hairforce, which gets rid of nits for £40 a session. At first, I had dismissed it: calling in the professionals was for the rich or timid, not us. We could handle this ourselves. By late August, I had changed my mind. School was starting in a week, and Julia’s head remained a megalopolis for nits. I gritted my teeth and ferried the girls to the elegant Primrose Hill terrace in north London, where Dee Wright runs her business in her former living room.

Julia was met by her so-called Lice Assassin, Aileen, a young woman wearing medical magnifying goggles and a white lab coat embossed with the slogan “Comb to Kill” in lavender. Would the girls like a DVD or a game? With Julia transfixed by a film and Nicola happily jabbing at a games console, Aileen went to work. She parted Julia’s hair into sections, then combed, then wielded a giant vacuum cleaner fitted with a nit comb. Within minutes, she had the bottom of a tiny paper cup littered with lice corpses. Soon, she was calling for backup. Hairforce counts the lice and eggs (or nits, as eggs are known), in a chart for each child. “You need an intelligent clearing system,” explains Wright, a crisply articulate former ad executive who launched Hairforce in 2007. “A quantitative approach helps you understand an infestation, so we can educate you. That way, we take out the fear factor and make it a clear, understandable process.”

Britain’s £30m nit and lice market, argues Wright, is far from transparent. “Eighty per cent of what you buy is ineffective,” says Wright. “It’s pretty much a rip-off industry.” She thinks her own business, by contrast, is performing a crucial social service, as lice can affect everything from children’s schoolwork to their self-esteem. “We’ve had children sitting in the back of the class, because they were so embarrassed by their lice,” she says. “Or being too shy to audition for the school play because of them.”

Globally, nits are a growing industry, with boutiques and mini-businesses popping up to counter increasingly virulent strains. Classified as the second most communicable childhood disease after the common cold, lice can do more than simply itch. Bacteria on their faeces can cause runny noses, and they can interfere with sleep and focus. “They’re a brilliant opponent, really interesting,” says Wright, who cites their nimbleness – “they’re like monkeys” – and speed: 23.5cm a minute. “They can become immune to products, but not to hand-clearing.”

Julia had, according to her assassins’ log, “thousands” of lice and “zillions – uncountable” numbers of nits. “So is this the worst case you’ve ever seen?” I ask, perversely chuffed at our spectacular score. “It’s a heavy infestation … ” agrees Wright. Even with two women labouring over Julia’s head for nigh on two hours, combing by hand, peering through their magnifying goggles, she was so infested she had to go back the next day. In the end, she had multiple sessions with a couple of people working on her scalp, while her sister, who also had “thousands” of nits, plus 250 fully grown lice, needed several sessions of her own.

As happily nit-free as we are – at least until the next infestation hits school – I still feel a bit of a fool for parting with so much money. One mother told me about a £15 electric zapper that works, another about barber shops that do head-clears for £20. Would they work? Who knows? But I do know that I haven’t seen a louse for a month – and that’s worth a lot.

Link to The Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/24/nits-head-lice-infest

Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies filmed us clearing a wonderful girl from Ipswich.  Her Mum had been struggling to rid her of her infestation for a very long time.  Cleared of a substantial build up of nits, we all witnessed a very happy transformation.  This will be aired in the Spring of 2010.

Link: http://www.channel4embarrassingillnesses.com/

Finding a solution to an irritating problem

By Sarah Ebner

A single scratch of the head is enough to make normally sane parents panic. Their fear … headlice.

Only a few weeks into the new school year, and far too many children (and some unfortunate parents) will already be suffering from the dreaded lice attack. Gone are the days of the nit nurse, and also gone are the days when lice affected only a small number of children. New research suggests that between 10 and 20 percent of Britain’s 4 million primary school children will have headlice at any one time — up from around one per cent in the 1980s.

“There are so many kids now with relatively high levels,” says Dr Ian Burgess, Director of the Medical Entomology Centre in Cambridge, and a headlice expert. “They’re passing the lice around easily.”

There are many reasons why headlice have become so common, but there are three main ones — changes in school practice, resistance to insecticides, and a lack of urgency in dealing with them.

Although a surprising number of parents (one in four according to the latest research) still think that their school does nit checks, most do not, which means that the issue slips out of many parents’ minds. There is now a feeling that periodic inspections would, “be valueless, unless carried out weekly if not daily,” says a spokeswoman from Barnet Council.

“The schools are saying it’s really bad,” says Amanda Coplans, who co-founded Nitty Gritty, an aromatherapy based solution to headlice, 10 years ago. “More children are sitting next to each other at tables rather than desks, there’s more head to head contact, more huddling in groups, and central heating. Lice thrive in that atmosphere.”

Dr Burgess agrees. He explains that this “huddling”, whether to work or sit around a computer, is also partly to blame for the rise in cases of boys, and in secondary schools.

Headlice cannot jump or fly from one head to another. Instead, they crawl on or between hairs and feed on human blood. Lice lay their eggs (which take around a week to hatch) near the scalp, and generally stay close to the skin. Some people do not feel itchy until several weeks down the line.

Once a child is infested, parents have a few options. Headlice are now largely resistant to pesticide-based treatments, although many parents still use them. Instead Dr Burgess recommends newer options such as Hedrin or Full Marks Solution (not mousse). All treatments need to be done in conjunction with (the very boring) combing.

It’s all rather time-consuming, but there is a new solution. The Hairforce, based in Primrose Hill, north-west London, now boasts its own headlice “spa”.

Dee Wright founded the company after hearing many parents complain that they did not know what to do about lice. Customers have their hair vacuumed and combed by headlice “assassins” who go through it pretty much strand by strand (using no chemicals). Children are otherwise engaged watching DVDs or playing on Nintendos.

“We get 18-month-olds to grandmothers,” says Wright. “And at the moment we’re extremely busy because of children going back to school. We also had lots of Jewish families coming to us after all the summer camps. Children with lice pass it around each other. Then they go back to school…”

A visit to the Hairforce is not cheap (it is £40 a session, with three needed) but many grateful parents do not seem to mind. Wright herself argues that it is a failsafe way of removing lice, as opposed to bottled treatments.

Dr Burgess agrees that the Hairforce may have the right idea, but is put off by the cost. He is also convinced that only way to get rid of lice completely would be for the entire community to be treated at the same time.

“If you treat everyone at once, it’s so much more successful, because you can really knock the lice out,” he says. “What we need is a radical re-think, and, of course, continuous vigilance.”

See the article: http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/20518/finding-solution-irritating-problem

BBC 1

We were filmed a few months back for this well known programme.  Our feature is due to air on the 26th October 2009 at the primetime slot of 7.30 pm.  Do watch!

Check out the Inside Out website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/