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Comment by janwillemb | Hacker News Reader

"Overexposure to insecticides has bred resistance in the parasites" is the title, but the article only speaks about "exposure", not "overexposure".

That said, as a parent in the Netherlands, we nowadays use the simplest and most effective method: fine-combing the hair every morning and night for two weeks. Use hair conditioner before combing to make the beasts sticky for easier combing. Guaranteed success.

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Just went through this for the first time with my youngest. I used the top rated comb on Amazon. Took all the stress away. Absolutely worked: no fuss, no insecticides.

As someone with curly hair, married to someone with slightly curly hair, I weep for any of my future children that end up exposed to lice.

Not a parent, as the following suggestion will probably make obvious, but why don't people just shave their kids' head when it happens? It's what I would do if it happened to me rather than do that nonsense every morning for weeks on end.

Imagine two girls with long, beautiful blond hair which has never in their life been cut...

When my kids have lice I shave my own head, but I haven't been able to convince my daughter to do the same.

She's got pretty long and thick hair so washing and combing it is a b#tch!

Alright, I can see how it would be unacceptably cruel to ask a girl to do it. I still think I'd make a boy do it though...

Right, because boys never get mocked at school...

It's a tossup. If you can't get rid of your son's lice in a timely fashion without shaving your son's head, he's probably going to give the lice to his peers... and the mocking will be even worse.

I think for a lot of boys it wouldn't be much of a problem, although I know that if my head were shaved as a child I would have found it difficult.

Theoretically this would also cause resistance as surviving lice multiply in extremely rare cases.

That would be resistance against a physical device, the comb. The only chance for lice-survival is to be full grown and still be smaller than a hair.

Yes, I agree with your first point, but there are plenty of other ways they could survive 2 weeks worth of combing. Like the eggs could be smaller than the average hair and could last longer. Or, they could go into the scalp for extended periods of time. There are ways it could happen.

The eggs (nits) are to small to comb out, that's already the case. That's why you need to repeat this for two weeks, to comb out the new lice before they start breeding.

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