Head lice.
Just mentioning those two words can be enough to get some people scratching their heads, and fighting an infestation can be emotionally and financially draining.
It's very common among school-age children, said Dr. Kultar Shergill, a pediatrician with Uptown Pediatric Associates, with offices in New Kensington and Natrona Heights, Harrison.
For some parents it's a fight they've been waging throughout the school year.
"My daughters need to worry about school instead of bugs," said Debbie Hubbard, who asked that her two children not be named. She said her children attend Martin Elementary School in New Kensington.
Hubbard said her kids first got head lice around Thanksgiving and have had them about six times since, despite repeated hair treatments and house cleanings. The lice only recently disappeared, but she's concerned the repeated infestations came from school.
Shannon Prosser, whose children also attend Martin Elementary, said they have also had head lice several times since August. One of her three daughters had hair down to her waist that was cut off to her neck because the problem was getting out of hand.
"It was too beautiful and too thick," Prosser said. "I had to use two bottles (of shampoo) in her hair when she got it.
"Their stuffed animals have been in bags since August," Prosser said. "I've just been tearing up the bedrooms and redoing everything, spraying down the bedding, sweeping with the sweeper. I wash the bed clothes every other day.
"I get so scared of lice. I don't want it."
Another parent at Martin, Shirley DelGrosso, said it can take five hours to go through the hair of her three children.
"When one gets them, the other two get them," DelGrosso said.
They've had lice four times since January, and its taken an emotional toll, she said.
"My little ones cried and cried," said DelGrosso said.
"They tell you it takes time and you just have to deal with it, but in the meantime the kids are missing all this school," DelGrosso said. "I know teachers are doing their jobs, and teachers can only do so much. If they see kids scratching, they tell someone."
Patsy Smetana, a nurse for the New Kensington-Arnold School District, said the district currently has no students out of school because of lice.
"We had some isolated incidents, but there was nothing out of the ordinary," Smetana said. She said school officials urge parents who find head lice on their children to contact the school so officials can check siblings and classmates.
Smetana said she sends notices to parents at the beginning of every year to brief them on head lice, including symptoms and what to do if they find them. Smetana said any student found with lice is sent home and has to be checked back in.
"They have to be nit free," Smetana said.
Many local districts have so-called "no nit" policies, meaning the hair must be free of louse eggs before a child can return to school.
Gabriel Ziccarelli, superintendent in the Allegheny Valley School District, said there have been about three or four cases this year, but that number varies from year to year.
"There's no pattern to it, and it's not like the flu where if one person gets it, everyone gets it, because if it's corrected quickly it can end right there," Ziccarelli said.
However, it's not unusual for someone to get reinfested.
"It happens frequently," Ziccarelli said. "It's not the rule, but it does happen."
Ziccarelli said the treatments, especially separating the hair follicles in search of nits, are time-consuming and frustrating.
"You might do this for a day or two and the nurse will say there are still live nits there and send the student home," Ziccarelli said. "It creates level of frustration."
In the Armstrong School District, nurse Sonya Shaner said students are checked twice a year. She estimates about 20 to 25 students out of about 650 may get head lice in a year. This year, she saw 25 cases.
"It takes two weeks to get every homeroom and student," Shaner said. "It's difficult, too, because we're basically doing a screening, and we can't spend a lot of time on each student, so we're looking for obvious things. But it's been pretty effective."
One problem in controlling head lice is that families sometimes don't report a case because they're embarrassed, said Bonnie Kautz, a nurse at the Kiski Area School District.
"They shouldn't be," Kautz said. "It can happen to anyone, but I know that's the way people feel."
"This is a situation that's been on Earth since the Earth existed," Kautz said. "It's just something you have learn to live with and do the best you can to get it taken care of."
About head lice
Personal hygiene, socioeconomic background or cleanliness at home or school have nothing to do with getting head lice.
Anyone can get head lice, said Dr. Kultar Shergill, a pediatrician with Uptown Pediatric Associates, it just takes direct contact with someone who has it.
Head-to-head contact, sharing clothing, combs or brushes or even sharing a pillow or seat with someone who has lice can spread it.
You can't get lice from pets. Lice crawl from host to host. They don't jump or fly. Without a human host, they die within 24 hours.
One problem is lice are becoming resistant to the more common treatments, Shergill said.
About 25 percent to 30 percent of time, parents find eggs hatching into nymphs that have a lot of resistance and stronger medicine has to be approved, he said.
Usually children who have resistant lice have to wait two treatments while getting a referral for stronger treatments, and in the meantime they're exposing other kids to lice, he said.
A difficult case of head lice doesn't necessarily mean the bugs are resistant. Shergill said the medicine has to be used as prescribed without skipping any steps.
Shergill said if one member of the family has lice, others should be examined. If lice aren't visible but symptoms are present, that person should be treated.
If lice are visible, use an over-the-counter medication. However, if symptoms remain after several days of using the shampoo, it's a good idea to see a physician, Shergill said.
"Most of the time it is pretty contagious," Shergill said. "More than 50 percent of the time, you have to treat the whole family."
Shergill said his practice consists of about 1,500 patients and he's treated one or two head lice cases each month.
Children between 3 and 11 and their families are infested most often, and girls get head lice more often than boys. In the United States, African-Americans rarely get head lice, according to the Center for Disease Control.
- Stephanie Ritenbaugh, staff writer
