Homeopathic lice treatment

[ponderingturtle]

Thank goodness it doesn't have any of those pesky "chemicals"!

Yep, Natrum muriaticum is so much better for your chi than NaCl.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Someone designed a louse killer using heat, modeled after a hair dryer.

 

[ShowMe]

We decided to take one for the team and check this stuff out.

My friend's daughter was kind of excited about us using her as an experiment. We both went through her hair and found quite a few live lice. In the name of science we left them alone.

We applied the product per the instructions, put on a shower cap and left it on for an hour. Before she rinsed out her hair we went through and found a lot of dead lice.

She rinsed her hair and I let her mother go through it again. She found a few "movers" and removed all the nits she could find. If this were a true test I guess we both would have g9one through her hair several times to make certain there were zero lice, then see if the nits would hatch.

My curiosity only goes so far, however.

Granted, this was a completely unscientific experiment and may only be slightly higher than "anecdotal" evidence, but the product does have the ability to kill lice.

I fired off this letter in an email to the manufacturer; if they reply I'll post it here:

To whom it may conern,

Recently a friend of mine wanted to purchase your product but was concerned about the word "homeopathic" being used in its description.

Homeopathic medicine is usually defined as a system of medical treatment based on the use of minute quantities of remedies that in larger doses produce effects similar to those of the disease being treated. According to modern homepaths the more you dilute a homepathic solution the stronger it becomes. (See http://skepdic.com/homeo.html and http://www.randi.org for further details).

I do not believe that using a true homepathic rememedy will cure lice, but I have seen your product used and have seen that it does kill lice.

So my question is: When the word "homeopathic" is used to describe your product are you stating it is created using the homepathic process, or is this meant in the pejorative form of the word meaning "all natural" and not referring to the process used in its creation?

Thank you for your time in this matter.

 

[Art Vandelay]

The big question was weather or not lice could be suffocated.

Whether.

I think I can rather safely say that the product you are looking at is not homeopathic in the slightest. It is simply labelled as such as a sales gimmick. A real homeopathic remedy (!) would contain only water or alcohol, or be in pillule form, and would be taken internally.

Whether your prospective product works, and how it might work, is a completely unrelated point.

On a slightl yrelated note there's an advert currently on in the UK that confuses me. It's for a head lice treatment that apparently doesn't contain any pesticides but still kills all the head lice. Assuming this is actually a real treatment and not homeopathic my problem is this; surely anything that kills pests is in fact a pesticide? Either the treatment doesn't work in which case they are engaged in false advertising, or it does work in which case it is, by definition, a pesticide and they are still falsely advertising. Personally I think it would be great to have head louse treatment that isn't as bad as the regular stuff, but there doesn't seem to be any excuse for misleading adverts when the only difference is likely to be that it smells less. Does anyone know about advertising law, or the product in question? I can't remember the name, but I think it's called Head-something (not Head-on).

Homeopathic medicine is usually defined as a system of medical treatment based on the use of minute quantities of remedies that in larger doses produce effects similar to those of the disease being treated.

Well, usually, there is actually no quantity of the "remedy".

So my question is: When the word "homeopathic" is used to describe your product are you stating it is created using the homepathic process, or is this meant in the pejorative form of the word meaning "all natural" and not referring to the process used in its creation?

I don't think that you're using the word "perjorative" correctly; it refers to a word that expresses contempt of the thing to which it refers.

There is the real traditional medicine for this, and it works too. It is called nit picking.

I'm doing my best! Oh, wait, that's not what you meant, is it?

 

[ShowMe]

Whether.

Quite right. The spell checker corrected my original misspelling of the word, it just used the wrong word and I missed it.

I don't think that you're using the word "perjorative" correctly; it refers to a word that expresses contempt of the thing to which it refers

Drat, right again. Two incorrect words in the same letter. I'm slipping.

Well, hopefully, they'll get the gist.

 

[ChristineR]

"Pejorative" sounds like a Freudian slip to me. One of these products (LiceFreee) refers to itself as homeopathic and contains a 1X salt solution. That's 10% salt. According to homeopathic theory, that would be harmful, and a .0000001 percent salt solution should cause spontaneous lice.

So maybe pejorative means "causes lice to live really well" or maybe it just means "stupid."

 

[Mongrel]

"
So maybe pejorative means "causes lice to live really well" or maybe it just means "stupid."

Or the third option (my favourite) "We're making this up as we go along"

 

[ShowMe]

Just received a reply from my email:

Thank you for your e mail. Licefreee is a true homeopathic remedy, formulated and manufactured in accordance with the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States (HPUS) and Clarke's Materia Medica. It is not "all natural", but it is non-toxic.

I hope this answers your question.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Donna Cox

Tec Laboratories, Inc.

Interesting reply. So if it's a true homeopathic rememdy that means they've discovered what actually causes lice & are using it in minute quantities to remove the problem.

I suppose I could go back and forth with them but I doubt it would get me anywhere. My new hypothesis is that they are saying it's homeopathic to circumvent some of the FDA processes for approval.

 

[Mongrel]

Just dug up some information regarding Head Lice treatments (I knew I'd read it recently) available in the UK from the Chemist + Druggist supplement OTC. To summarise;
There are three types of clinically tested treatments

Insecticides - Permethrin, phenothrin, malthion, prioderm and carbaryl which is prescription only. Lotions are preferred as the product should be left on the hair as long as possible (up to 12 hours\overnight). Treatment should be repeated after seven days to kill and lice that have hatched since.

Dimeticone lotion - coats and suffocates the lice. Because it doesn't contain a chemical that acts directly on the louse, it claims to be free from resistance. Cuddles, the advert you probably saw was for Hedrin which contains this.

Wet combing - must be done every four days for at least two weeks to be successful and should be carried out until no lice are seen for three sessions.

Resistances vary over the country which is always why you should speak to a health care professional before buying over the counter items.

In the 'Common Myths' box.
Essential oils, such as Tea Tree, and herbal remedies are effective - no evidence of these working
Natural approaches such as washing the hair in vinegar, beer, honey and mayonnaise are effective - no evidence of these working

There's a link to the Bug-Buster site which advocates their wet combing kit, but also contains a link to a BMJ paper testing their kit that looks good.


Hope that's of some help and apologies for the lack of sources, the supplement is aimed at counter staff.

 

[Dogdoctor]

Interesting but it is a single study and previous studies have shown wet combing to be less effective. I am not sure what that all means but I would take it with a grain of salt rather than to conclude the study accurately reflects reality. I am impressed that there were apparent cures with wet combing so my take would be that is a possible treatment if instructions are followed diligently but my bet is that overall compliance would be better with less laborious treatments.

 

[ShowMe]

Interesting but it is a single study and previous studies have shown wet combing to be less effective.

I think the wet combing would be effective IF you used a lice comb and IF that comb removed all the live lice.

If you did it every day you would eventually get all of the lice that hatched from whatever nits were laid previously.

It would work...just as picking all the lice and nits out of the hair would work.

 

[Dogdoctor]

I think the wet combing would be effective IF you used a lice comb and IF that comb removed all the live lice.

If you did it every day you would eventually get all of the lice that hatched from whatever nits were laid previously.

It would work...just as picking all the lice and nits out of the hair would work.

Yeah to a point, and that is to the point of your ability to do so based on your nit/lice picking skill and motivation to continue till you have them all and your ability to evaluate if you have picked them all. Pretty sure that if people with kids are the same as people with animals these factors won't come together all the time and treatments will fail due to lack of persistence as they do with the other treatments for the same reason. In dogs and cats lice are simple and easy to get rid of entirely yet in people the treatments fail often. The entire life cycle remains on the person. They may go off temporarily but have to get back on or die. The have no where to escape treatment other than the nit which can be made up for by a regular schedule of treatments timed so that more nits are not laid and persistence till the bugs are all gone.

 

[Gary]

Double post

 

[Gary]

My daughters (9 & 7) have occasionally come home from school with head lice. The first time, four or five years ago, we used a chemical treatment which smelt awful, but did the job, and we weren't really happy about putting such a seemingly strong chemical on her head. Since then we have only used the wash/condition/comb method, which has worked every time, but does require diligence. One of my daughters has very fine blond hair which makes the job easy, but the other has extremely thick dark hair making it more difficult - you have to go through the hair section by section - and if one child has them and you haven't spotted it immediately then you do need to check the whole household just to be sure. We have a near neighbour whose daughter regularly used to appear at our house with an obviously chemically treated head, and just as frequently with a head full of lice - I think the comb routine gives you direct feedback of progress, as long as you have the patience. The motivation comes from the thought of having a head full of lice!