Getting rid of the itch
Getting rid of the itch
Aimee Hornberger
Herald staff writer
Fall and spring are peak times for head lice when parents should check their children
MOSES LAKE — This is the second time 7-year-old Brandi House has gotten head lice this year.
The first time was at the end of last school year, but the annoying, sesame-sized adult lice and nits are back again.
Doing continuous loads of laundry and washing with special shampoos to treat lice have become a regular routine for the House family.
Over summer break Brandi didn't have a problem with lice and now they're back again, said Brandi's dad Scott.
One of Scott's biggest concerns is that local schools aren't doing enough prevention, yet the troublesome lice are to be expected this time of year, local school nurses say, as children head back to school and are in close proximity to each other.
Keeping kids home from school on a repeated basis when they get lice is not the best way to treat the problem either, said Moses Lake School District school nurse Laura Cromer.
Cromer said younger kids in grades kindergarten through sixth-grade are more susceptible than middle school or high school students because they are more often in closer proximity to each other.
Lice are most commonly spread from person to person when people are in close contact or when they share clothing or personal items. Lice do not fly or jump, they crawl.
So far, the lice season this fall does not appear to be worse than any other year, according to school nurses.
It's just the time of year, it's not an epidemic though, said MLSD nurse Lisa Ballard. The best thing for prevention is to make sure parents are diligent in checking their child's hair on a daily basis for nits and cleaning clothes and bed sheets.
Ballard does not know how many students have gotten lice this school year, and said it varies from year to year. At the beginning of each school year she performs lice checks, and from then on an as-needed basis at designated schools in the district.
In the Warden School District, school nurse Kimberly Hansen has seen 12 cases of lice in the district which is fewer than the number of cases she saw last year.
Hansen conducts lice checks every six weeks in the WSD for kindergarten through sixth-grade students.
If more than one student in a class has lice, a note is sent home with all the students in the class with prevention tips for getting rid of the lice if they should be found.
Parents should check for lice in the hair and behind the ears and around the neck and forehead areas, Hansen said.
Each school has brochures available to parents about lice and how to prevent it from spreading.
For more information on lice, go to www.headlice.org.
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