Lice, Lice, Dreaded Lice

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently stated that schools should not have "no nits" policies.  Since lice is not felt to be a public health threat, this statement by the AAP means that children should not be excluded from school once they have been treated for lice just because they still have nits in their hair.  Nits are the egg casings of the lice and are difficult to manually remove.  I'm so glad the AAP has this laissez-faire attitude to lice.  Parents get hysterical about lice and often need to be reminded that there are far worse diagnoses that children receive.  A few weeks ago, I saw a little girl in the office who complained of an itchy head.  She had lice crawling at the roots of her hair.  The mom was horrified, in shock.  I told her that it was, after all, just lice; it wasn't leukemia or lymphoma or diabetes that we were talking about.  You should wash out your linens, I told her, but lice should be treated as an inconvenience and nothing else.  And don't feel like your family is dirty or unclean in any way, I continued, because lice doesn't discriminate; it affects kids from all socioeconomic classes. 

After calming this mom down though, I thought about how I would react if one of my kids got lice.  I have to admit that the sight of the bugs crawling in the child's hair did make my stomach turn.  Come to think of it, I probably wouldn't react so well either.  I'm just going to hope that lice won't invade my house any time soon.