I've got nits and lice!! EEuww! I spent the summer with my nephew, who caught nits and I caught them off him!
NITS PREFER 'CLEAN' HAIR THAN 'DIRTY' HAIR!! Lice can't grip onto hair that is oily.
Nits on adult heads?!
This is very rare, but it does happen; usually parents or people involved in childcare. On adults they can take up to 30 days to hatch, so you could be carrying around a bunch a eggs ready to emerge and itch your head up big time!! My head got itchier and itchier for about 2 weeks and suddenly I found a louse in my shower! This was a week and a half after I'd left my family. I emailed my mum to ask if she knew about any nits around the family and she replied that she, my sister and my nephew all had nits! So we must have all caught them of my nephew who tends to hang around his friends who are school children...
What's the next step? Do I have to use chemicals?
So I found a louse and can see some nits (eggs) in my hair! WHAT TO DO? All I can remember as a kid is that I had LOADS of nits and my mum would use a dreadful, stenchy chemical that seamed to kill everything in my hair and destroy part of head with it too! But knowing what I know now about chemicals and being no-poo for nearly 8 months I could not bare the thought of using such chemicals on my head. So I started searching for natural options and found that apparently the best way is to use Coconut Oil and Tea Tree Oil (make sure both oils are 100% natural and are the pure ingredients, you don't want to use creams or oil blends...)
Natural Recipe for Nit Remedy
Mix 3 tablespoons of pure coconut oil, and 1 teaspoon of pure tea tree oil. Rub it all over your scalp and hair, then cover it in a scarf. I also wore a hoody on top in case any would slide through the edges of my scarf... I didn't want to drop them off where ever I went!
Leave the oil-remedy and head scarf on your head over-night or at least 8 hours (some can hold their breath for up to 8 hours!). With a nit comb, comb out the dead bodies and rinse the comb well between each finding. Then when you think you're done, wash your hair, using your normal routine (add a couple drops of tea tree oil into your shampoo or washing mix). Your hair will remain oily for up to a few days but that is a good thing. It will prevent any live ones to latch onto your hair and they will die quickly. I prepared a mix in a spray bottle, to spray my hair everyday for the next week or so. It's made up of 10 drops of tea tree oil and 1 cup of water.
This worked for me, my head continued to be itchy for up to 3 or 4 days after all the lice were dead because they bite a bit and I had an allergic reaction to their saliva which is common. So don't freak out if you're their dead and don't understand why you're still scratching!
With my no-poo or shamphree hair routine, my hair stayed oily for 9 days. I washed it every 2 days with shikakai and lemon, and also baking soda and apple cider vinegar. The ACV helped to maintain my hair moist because although it was oily from the coconut oil, my hair felt a bit like hay underneath it all. I usually wash my hair once or twice a week but because of the coconut oil I needed to wash it more just to get rid of the oilyness. Now that all the oil is washed out, my hair is left so gorgeous, luscious, soft and so smooth. Great! (Y)
How to catch nits
Nits and lice do not fly or jump, you cannot catch them from a pillow and if they've been off a human head they'll die within 24 hours. The only way you catch them is if they crawl from another head onto your head so that is usually whilst hugging or carrying an infested child or being in other very close contact with an infested head.
How to get rid of nits fully / What nits hate
Wash the T-shirts, jumpers, hats and scarves you've been wearing the past couple days, as well as bedding and your coat. If your nits were on anything else, they've probably died by now and fallen off somewhere. Nits hate oily environments (so rub that oil in deep and all over!), they hate freezing environments (If your afraid your coat might be infested but it's too big for your washing machine then put it in a freezer!), they also hate heat! So if you use curling irons, flat irons or hair dryers then by all means, use them today! I don't ever use heat on my hair but I actually considered it today... I resisted though.
Prevention
Tea tree oil is also the best prevention from nits and lice because they hate it so much! If heads in your local area are infested and you want to prevent your kids from catching them then put a few drops into your normal hair-washing routine and that of your kids so that all of you are protected. Lice will not approach a head that smells of tea tree oil.
Spiritual and non-violence view of killing nits
So while I was preparing to kill all these tiny beings on my head I was getting second thoughts. Do I really need to kill them? Is there a way to get rid of nits without killing them? and blablabla... Well I thought about it longer.
1) If there was a way to remove them without killing them - they would die afterwards because they can only survive on a human head.
2) Removing them alive and placing them on someone else's head - completely adverse to non-violence because you would be putting another person through the itchy ordeal and they would most probably end up killing them anyway.
3) The only pure non-violent way to deal with nits and lice would be to keep them on your head, but living far away from other humans in order to not transfer them to anyone. And you would not be allowed to scratch your head because it would hurt them and you. So this would be a truly most difficult task and test from God!
4) So I have to kill them? Yes. But there are different ways to kill a being. You can kill out of revenge, out of anger, out of God-consciousness etc.
So I decided that there was no other alternative but to kill them. These are parasites that were created solely to live off human blood and on their heads no less! So it is part of them and it is who they are to hurt us, but it is not who we are to hurt them back! Do not kill them out of revenge for biting your scalp, and do not hurt or kill them out of spite or anger. I must remember why I am killing them, and it is only because I am too weak to carry them on me because of the pain and itchiness. So I surrender to God Almighty and I kill these tiny beings out of love for them and love for my head and love for my sanity! I pray that being killed by a God-consciousness person will free them from this pitiful existence that they are in and that they can move onto a higher form of life now. Amen!
I hope you get rid of your nits and that everything is well for you!
Lots of peace and love
No comments:
Post a Comment