of lice and men

September 29, 2010 8:02 AM

Help! I have pubic lice ALL OVER my body. How can I get rid of them once and for all?

Yeah, this is pretty gross.

Two mornings ago I got a real shock when I discovered that the brown, intensely itchy "scabs" around my belly button were actually lice. They started on my stomach area, and have branched out to my pubic hair, my legs, my thighs, and some forays to my chest and upper arms. I am a very hairy guy, so these little fuckers can live pretty much anywhere on me. I spend time pulling out the lice with tweezers, but it seems like they come back manifold and taking care of the nits seems literally nigh on impossible. Last night I set aside the clothes I had worn while lice-stricken, changed my sheets, and shampooed all my problem areas in RID. Today, there were still lice on me, crawling happily around. Maybe fewer than before, but their geographic spread is growing. Thus all the nice newly lice-free clothes and sheets are now evidently lice-tainted.

I'm very frustrated because laundry is something that is not easy for me to just pop off; going to the laundromat is expensive and time-consuming. I can't afford time-wise to do laundry every time I want to try getting rid of the lice. For example, I'm going to apply RID again tonight but I don't have a third sheet to use, so I'm going to have to use the same sheet and blanket from last night. Same story for my bathtowels-- they're now all lice-exposed. How likely is it, anyway, that these objects will re-introduce lice?

I'm seeing a special someone soon and I want to get rid of these buggers as soon as possible. I dread to think I'm going to be living in a nonstop cycle of tweezing, shampooing, and being re-infested. Help me out! Email: [e-mail]

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (20 answers total)

I only know about head lice, but I've never gotten rid of them on my kids through poison alone. Combing combing combing. That's all that works. Get all the lice and eggs out and they'll be gone. I am a girl, so I would probably deal with your problem with lots of shaving, but I don't know how your special someone would feel about that. (Sure, that'd be an itchy solution, but you're already itchy, right?) For the laundry problem, it'll be cheaper and quicker to just dry everything in a dryer on hot for 1/2 an hour or so. I think that's supposed to kill everything. For tonight, if you are going to RID again, I'd buy a towel and a sleeping bag or something on the way home rather than sleep on the same sheets. If you are going to sleep on licey sheets, don't use the poison until morning. But you'd still need a clean towel.
posted by artychoke at 8:20 AM on September 29, 2010

Lice can live for up to ten days without feeding. They mostly live on clothing, not your body and only need to transfer back and forth to your body once a day to feed. They also lay their eggs in clothing seams.

Wash with RID. Then: Spend the money. Do the laundry in hot, hot water. Do not do it as a hand wash because you won't be able to sustain the intense heat long enough to kill them quickly. Do all your dirty clothing, your sheets and pillowcases, and any clean clothing that might have been exposed to the lice. Then run them in the landromat's dryer on high heat.

You will then need to wash the clothing that you are wearing when you do the laundry, because it will also be infested. Try not to bring your clean laundry into contact with that last set of dirty clothes.

Vacuum your carpets, if you have any. Then use RID again.

You may have to do this more than once, but hopefully you won't. Good luck.
posted by zarq at 8:20 AM on September 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Anything that can't be washed in hot hot water can be bagged up in garbage bags for a few weeks.
posted by muddgirl at 8:23 AM on September 29, 2010

Talk to an exterminator. The shampoo and laundry will help with what's on you, but they are no doubt all over your house, too. The place probably needs a good spraying. And, you should probably declutter your entire space as much as possible.

And, yeah - shave as much as you can. Use neet or another depilatory for the hair that's not really shaveable. In fact, if you can carry it, I'd say you should even go full shinehead for a while. (That 10-day mark sounds about right.)

It sounds extreme, but you have a pretty extreme problem. Check the recent askme stream for bedbug questions. You're in that same kind of space right now.
posted by Citrus at 8:25 AM on September 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Anything that can't be washed in hot hot water can be bagged up in garbage bags for a few weeks.

But the bags *must* be airtight. Lice need air to survive, and if air can get in and out of the bag, they might be able to as well.
posted by zarq at 8:26 AM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

You need a LouseBuster, homes! (Oh, and all that other stuff, too.)
posted by julthumbscrew at 8:26 AM on September 29, 2010

Washing your sheets and towels is absolutely crucial. I'm sorry because I know how much laundromats suck even when you only have to go every couple of weeks, but you will definitely be creating a vicious cycle if you use sheets and towels that have been exposed to lice because they can live for a while.

I grew up in the tropics, and head lice were pretty common in the summer months. The routine was - wash sheets, towels, and clothes worn daily. Nothing that has touched you while you have the lice should be reused or stored because the lice will jump. The lice medicine we used came with a fine comb, and every day the hair should be combed through pretty meticulously to remove the lice and any eggs.

This process usually took a few days. It sucks, it's horrible, but lice are insidious little a-holes. Would it be a little easier to go get bargain-basement sheets and towels so that you can buy yourself some time? If you can't get to the laundromat, you can put the infested items in a tightly closed garbage bag and not touch it again until you are ready to launder them. I would not suggest only going the dryer route, either...if I remember right that method was tried by a relative of mine once, and it didn't work. Hot water, high heat. Good luck.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 8:29 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Dry your clothes until they are baking hot. You have to wash/dry everything you own, so now's a good time to chuck everything you rarely wear into the trash. Vacuum you mattress. Sorry you're going through this hassle. I had these when I was a teenager so I my mum took care of all the washing.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:55 AM on September 29, 2010

I worked at a job where--despite our best screenings, treatments and precautions--there was a nearly-annual outbreak of lice.

The dryer-only route only works if you have a truly industrial dryer like we did. Even then, we always washed everything possible, bleached and disinfected all surfaces, sealed the mattresses and wrapped what we could in airtight bags for 10 days, etc. We would be excused from all other work duties, and it still took forever. I urge you to listen to zarq's general instructions and artychoke on combing and combing and combing every bit of hair you don't shave/depilate.

Here is what happens if you kinda half-ass things at the point you're at now, or try the half-assed approach a couple more times: you get mildly resistant lice. You know what works on mildly resistant lice? You do the RID routine again, re-wash everything you just washed for real this time, vacuum again, shave and/or crop all hair, comb again, then you slather affected body areas that still have hair with a thick coat of pure Vaseline for 24 hours. Then you try to wash off the petroleum jelly. You have to use dish soap to get it off, and it still takes two showers for the first pass, and a few more in the following days. If this sounds terrible and gross to you....it is.
posted by Uniformitarianism Now! at 8:58 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I can't afford time-wise to do laundry every time I want to try getting rid of the lice.

Buy some sheets (2 sets?) that are cheap enough to throw out. Wash at home in the tub with hot water and bleach, hang to dry.
posted by K.P. at 9:46 AM on September 29, 2010

Shave your body hair.
posted by hworth at 10:00 AM on September 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

One of the things not mentioned yet with either pubic lice or head lice is the one thing that's different, and while there's a lot of common ground, the one thing to remember that pubic lice are filed under STD - and so you also need to consider whom you've had or may have contact with, and inform - as much as to protect yourself from being re-infected and to allow them to check themselves in order to treat it earlier. And because the wiki pictures of crabs near someone's eyelashes is freaking me out, and early treatment makes a huge difference in these things. But just in case it's scabies, which burrow under the skin and sometimes need more than topical treatment alone, you may need to get a doctor to verify exactly whom it is you have.

As the others have said - it's not all just RID and sheets and towels - clothing, hats, trousers and gotchies all need treatment. It's worth the time not to be infested, and not to infest others. It has to be, and I'm sorry - I know it's a pain.

And while my experience is with school-age head lice, in any case, you have to consider the source. And if, as in our case, the source (okay, the source's mommy) is either ignorant or secretive (or as in our case, also in denial) then the same rule applies: No hugging and no sharing anything until it's all clear.
posted by peagood at 10:35 AM on September 29, 2010

For body lice, as opposed to head lice, the laundering and cleaning is key: body lice can live without a host for weeks, while head lice can only survive a day or two without a host. More important than getting them off of you, is getting them out of your clothing and linens. You must vacuum thoroughly and then get the vacuum bag out of your house immediately.

I dealt with head lice on and off for a couple of months last winter and that was while "doing everything right". I don't envy you.
posted by padraigin at 10:38 AM on September 29, 2010

PS, I forgot - as we had to - think back over the past month (based on the pubic lice's life cycle) as to whom you've had contact with, and notify as needed. My feeling was that as bad as it was to find them, it was worse to realize we'd been living with them for even that short time beforehand.
posted by peagood at 10:47 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

When my kid kept getting lice from a neighbor kid, we finally took her to the doctor & got prescription strength lice-killing cream. We saturated her head, wrapped it up in a towel, and let it sit for 20 minutes. It was very effective.

I would recommend a visit to the doctor, some aggressive shaving, and doing laundry like a maniac.
posted by SamanthaK at 11:25 AM on September 29, 2010

The cleanser Cetaphil reportedly works to treat head lice. Don't know if it would help you, but it's mild and relatively cheap (Target sells a knock-off brand), so it couldn't hurt to try it.
posted by virago at 11:50 AM on September 29, 2010

Yeah, this sounds like it could be scabies to me. See the doc and they'll sort you out.
posted by Decani at 11:53 AM on September 29, 2010

Listen to the advice above about cleaning and washing the sheets/towels. As for your person, the active ingredient in the prescription topical cream used to treat scabies is the same as the active ingredient in Rid lice shampoo, albeit at a lower concentration. (You can get it from a farm supply store at a much higher concentration, for what it's worth.)

When I got scabies (from a nice hotel, no less), I used Rid, but followed the instructions that come with the permethin scabies prescriptions: Shower before bed, then apply to EVERY PART OF YOUR BODY, including between your toes and the soles of your feet and behind your ears, etc. Do not wash off. Repeat once more two days later (i.e., on the third day).

At the time, I didn't have health insurance and didn't want to pay a doctor and a pharmacist, and the Rid treatment got rid of the little suckers. Whether you've got lice or scabies, I'd imagine it would work for you too.

**Not a doctor, don't get the stuff in your eyes, etc.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:10 PM on September 29, 2010

Oh yeah, you want to spring for the fancy metal lice combs, not just the cheap plastic ones that come with the shampoo. The metal ones work way better.

And you might want to postpone contact with the special someone. I still kinda want to kick the mom of the kids who kept reinfecting my neighborhood over three years ago.

In case you are still underestimating the tenacity of these things, when my kids got lice, we did rid and what I thought was a sufficient combing and then were washing all the sheets and pillows in the house. Well, the dryer caught on fire and burned down the house. And the kids STILL had lice. Couldn't get rid of them until I sat and combed each kid's hair for at least a whole movie each. With reading glasses, a lot of light and near a window for sunlight. So, unless your going to enlist a friend's help, I'd re-suggest shaving. The hours of combing did it, but I was starting to seriously consider bald kids back then. The daughter was quite opposed, obvs.
posted by artychoke at 12:32 PM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

1. Denorex shampoo - extra strength
2. I've had a few people tell me that professional lice-ridding services that come into your home are worth the money and they work. There may be one in your area.

Good luck.
posted by greensalsa at 3:57 PM on September 29, 2010