Lice are pesky critters. They hide. They cling. They nest. It’s tough to rid young heads of their poppyseed-sized presence. Harder yet to keep the buggers away when siblings, friends and classmates may be hopping with lice themselves. And that is where Lice Knowing You comes in.
A funny sort of business
The state’s only trained and certified lice removing experts, Lice Knowing You just opened a new clinic on Mercer Island in January.
In a nitshell (pun intended), this means that Islanders wary that their children may be hosting a family or two of the prolific head parasite can visit for a $15 screening. If the lice are found, owner Nancy Gordon and her staff offer professional (“100 percent bug-free guarantee”) removal of the pest. It’s as thorough and safe a treatment as people will get, Gordon said.
“I’m about helping [clients] get lice away in a safe and healthy way,” she said. This entails strand-by-strand combing to find the lice and nits (the eggs and empty egg shells left by spawned lice) and carefully removing all traces. All of the products used during treatment are completely natural and non-toxic. Yet the service does come with a fee.
Gordon charges $95 per hour of lice removal. This includes one free intensive lice check and free initial lice checks for immediate family members. The average treatment time, she said, is up to one hour for short hair and up to two hours for long hair.
Of course, clients who come in “just to be checked” are free to take care of the matter with at-home kits available in drugstores. These kits run anywhere from $10 to $40.
“If they’re financially strapped, I’ll tell them how to do it at home. We’re as much about lice education as lice eradication,” Gordon said.
Yet Islander Tram Muti is not so sure. According to a letter she sent to the Reporter last month, Muti, who was treated at Lice Knowing You along with her fourth-grade daughter, felt pressured by a fellow parent to use the company’s service and to pressure others to follow suit.
“As the co-owner does the final combing on me, she told me to protect my [$450] investment by spreading the news to all parents in the classroom about their Web site. She said that I really need to spread the word about professional treatment or else the lice infestation would continue to spread,” she wrote. “For a moment, I was fearful. For a moment, I wanted all parents to have their children professionally treated so I can protect my $450 … Then, I remembered the other fourth-grade parent. She was fearful, just like me. Are we a tool in someone’s strategy to promote their business?”
Gordon disagrees completely.
“We’re not the hard sell,” she said. “While we’re for profit, I’m more about helping people get lice away in a safe and healthy way.”
The expert emphasized that keeping a child’s friends and classmates lice-free is crucial if parents do not want the parasite to return.
“Generally, you find that parents who don’t tell others hurt themselves because their kids will go back and play with the same kids who spread the lice. It hurts their family not to let others know. It’s the right thing to do — to tell people,” she said, adding that one-fourth of school-aged children will pick up lice at some point.
It’s not so much a question of business promotion, but rather lice prevention, Gordon maintained.
“It’s a way to stop the cycle,” she said.
Gordon has no problem with parents choosing to treat their children at home. She is aware that the school district has strict procedural policies on lice treatment. She knows that school nurses check students’ heads for free.
School bugs
Asked about Lice Knowing You, Lakeridge Elementary and Islander Middle School nurse Bonnie Barthelme said that, according to district rules, she has no authority to direct students to the company.
“We completely stay out of that. We cannot recommend to anyone what to do or what doctor to go to,” she said. “We will talk them through the treatments and tell them to ask their pharmacist or physician what to do.”
Barthelme is experienced in the practice of nit-picking herself. As a school nurse, she has children come to her with heads of lice all through the year. Because head lice (pediculosis) is defined as a communicable disease, the district requires that “a student with untreated symptoms of head lice shall be immediately excluded from school until treated. Removal of as many nits as possible following treatment should be encouraged.”
Barthelme said that she sees a number of children with lice every year. There has never been, however, an “infestation,” where several students in one class are carrying the parasite. Usually, adults are good about telling their children’s friends’ parents and stopping the cycle before it spreads too far. Yet other parents keep the problem quiet.
“They don’t always tell us that they’ve treated their kid. If they’re savvy parents, they’ll go on the Web and choose to take care of the problem themselves,” the nurse explained.
Indeed, there are a number of over-the-counter products for head lice.
Taking the fight home
Mercer Island Nutrition owner Jenny Lau knows all about at-home remedies. She helps parents choose the best products for their children (and sometimes themselves) all the time. The most popular product that Lau sells at her store are preventative oils.
“Lavender and rosemary are good repellents. You mix them up with water and put it in a spray bottle and spray kids’ jackets before they walk out the door. Lice don’t like the smell of these oils,” she said, adding this is the cheapest option for prevention as the oils cost about $10 each.
But what about customers who already have a lice problem? Lau has products for them, too. However, since Lice Knowing You opened up, her lice-kit sales have been scarce.
“I’ve noted a decrease in people looking for lice products since the company started,” she said. “Now it’s just people coming in for the preventative oils.”
Reports in the New York Times and Seattle Times suggest that lice are “in season” right now across the nation, which means parents are paying close attention to their children’s heads.
Barthelme said that Islanders are quickly spreading the word about Lice Knowing You.
“We’ve had a lot of parents choose to use their service. Some parents ask me to recommend the company, but I tell them I cannot. It’s client confidentiality,” she said.
Yet both Barthelme and Lao agree, when the problem of lice occurs, parents will go to almost any length to rid their children of the pesky parasite. Even if it does cost $95 a head.
More information on lice, lice prevention and remedies can be found at: www.headlice.org, the MISD Web site at www.misd.k12.wa.us or Lice Knowing You, www.liceknowingyou.com.
Avoiding lice
Lice can strike any head, regardless of hygiene, social status or general health. But a few tips can help prevent spread and recontamination:
• Avoid sharing hats, combs, brushes, helmets, ear phones, scarves, costumes and other personal items that are in contact with heads. It’s a good precaution to keep blankies and soft toys that get snuggled separate, too.
• When lice outbreaks have been reported, advise children not to play with each other’s hair or do head-to-head hugs.
• Hang coats and hats separately rather than in a jumble.
• Do regular nit checks at home so you can catch infestations as soon as possible.
• When there’s an outbreak in your community, wash pillow cases, hats and hoods more frequently. Lice can’t survive dry heat, so putting towels, coats, hoodies, etc., in the dryer for 20 minutes can kill lice and their eggs.
If you do get lice, anti-nit shampoos and combs are available at local pharmacies.
