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Wednesday, September 28, 2016

It Finally Happened to Us

It finally happened.  The day I've been dreading since my kids received their first "someone in your child's class has lice" letter when our daughter was in pre-school.  Our daughter had lice.

I knew it was coming.  It's inevitable these days now that they don't send kids home from school if they have lice.  So the kids just pass it back and forth, especially in Texas and the south where lice can live and breed easily.  But still I was somehow hoping we would get lucky.

Well, we didn't get lucky.  In fact we got very unlucky, because by the time we figured it out, my husband and I also had lice.  That's right I had lice for the first time at almost 42 years old and my husband at 43.  Somehow our son managed to pass by unscathed, likely because he has very short hair and he doesn't lie down in our daughter's bed at night and read with her (such a sweet moment led to our epidemic).

For those of you who have already experienced this rite of passage - kudos to you for not losing your cool and recognizing they are after all just little bugs, not the plague.  For those who have yet to have this joyous experience I'll share what I've learned about ridding our house of the lice epidemic.

First and foremost, you should know these things are tiny...very, very tiny.  I mean I knew they were tiny, but I had always heard them described as the size of a sesame seed.  Well, an adult louse is the size of sesame seed.  But it takes quite awhile for the lice to colonize and grow to that size.  So what you are looking for is either tiny white dots (eggs) that are smaller than the size of a pinhead OR a teenie tiny brown thing that looks like a microscopic piece of brown rice.  I mean it's no more than 1 mm long.  And if your kid has brown hair, you'll never see those because they blend in perfectly with their hair.












I tell you this, because my child had been complaining that her head was itching for at least 10 days.  I kept looking and looking and I didn't see anything.  I even thought I was smart, because I knew to look at the base of her neck and behind her ears first.  Still I never saw anything. (Although if you have a boy with short hair, you should look where their hair is longest first.)

I got more suspicious when my head started itching at the base, but after my husband examined me several times, we both concluded we didn't see anything on either head.  I even had the pediatrician look at my daughter's neck, and she said it was just sensitive skin.

So I turned to Google to uncover the source of itching.  Mom after mom said it's lice...you just can't see them.  That night after bath at about 7:00 at night (of course), I combed her hair and I saw a white dot...then another.  Then, I saw something move.  Crap.  My husband told me he didn't see anything, but I knew.  And I knew it was after 7:00 pm and my daughter had to go to school the next day and we were about to embark on quite an effort that evening.

Luckily, I have the best next door neighbor in the world, who has been through this and she had a spare lice removal kit at home which she generously offered to give me.  But this leads me to my next piece of advice - Once your kids start pre-school, purchase a lice kit.  It's going to happen and most likely you will discover it at night.  So be prepared and that will make your first experience far less stressful.

The next thing to consider when the time comes is what your de-lousing method of choice will be.  What are your options you might ask?  Well, you can go the chemical route.  Or you can go the organic, natural route.  Or you can go the professional route.  At one time I thought the pro idea seemed awesome, but keep in mind that they charge around $150/person.  So for our house, that would have been $450 (our daughter, myself, AND my husband).  And they aren't open at 8 pm at night when you really need them.  So that leaves chemical vs. natural.  I would have typically been inclined to go chemical - I mean I want something that's going to kill these buggers.  But it turns out that nothing really kills them.  You are just trying to dissolve the glue they use to attach to the hair, and then pick out the eggs and lice.  So I would lean to the natural side.  I used Nit Free, well, because beggars can't be choosers and that's what my neighbor had.  But it seemed to work well, it's natural, and it comes with a great metal lice comb (very important part of the process).

To condense the next steps and not make this the longest blog in the world, here's the gist of what we did:
1.  Used the kit mousse and comb to carefully comb out as many eggs and lice as possible that night. Comb one tiny section at a time and comb the hair on all four sides.
2.  After finishing the combing, we washed with a lice shampoo to deter lice that might be in the house from jumping back onto the head.
3.  Blow dry our hair!  Holy cow.  I had no idea this was so effective.  But I began thinking about if the heat in the dryer kills these things, won't heat on your head kill them?  Sure enough, the air will dry out the eggs and heat will even kill lice.  In fact, I found data that suggested blow drying was more effective than the combing process.

4.  Washed all of our bedding.  Anything that couldn't be washed that had touched heads (like stuffed animals), we put in the dryer on high for an hour.  If you have items (like plastic hats) that can't be put in the washer or dryer, just put them in the garage for 48 hours.  Lice die if they don't have human blood for 48 hours.
5.  Vacuumed the carpets and rugs especially where the kids play.  Lucky for us our cleaning ladies had been at the house that day and done that already.
6.  Put hats, combs, brushes, backpacks, bathrobes, anything that has touched the lice-filled hair in the washing machine or dishwasher.  I even put couch cushions in the dryer just for good measure.  But you should know that lice don't jump.  They don't want to be off a human head, so you do not have to go wash everything in your house when this happens.
7.  Then, I continued to wash pillow cases, hair brushes, and anything that had direct contact with our heads everyday until the 3rd day.  I also made sure we used the lice shampoo and blew dry everyone's hair each day.
8.  On the third day, we did another comb through for everyone.  I was clean.  My husband was clean.  But my daughter still had 10-15 bugs.  So we continued the process for her until the 6th day.  That day, we did another comb through and she was clean.

Whew - we survived the epidemic.  So I'm determined to do a better job of prevention from now on.  I'm now using lice shampoo and conditioner on both of my kids.  It won't kill lice.  It just makes their hair smell like rosemary, which apparently lice don't like.  I would love for my daughter to wear her hair in a pony tail everyday, which would help.  But she refuses, because she says ponytails hurt.  (I guess I could master the french braid).  I bought tea tree shampoo and conditioner for myself from Trader Joe's.  Apparently, lice don't like tea tree either.  (BTW it's only $3.99 a bottle at Trader Joe's, not the outrageous price on Amazon.)  I also will no longer use my comb or brush on my daughter's hair when I'm feeling too lazy to go get her brush.  And I vow to blow dry my hair at least every other day and my daughter's hair at least once a week.

My last piece of advice, if your kid says his/her head is itching for more than 2 days, just do a treatment.  If you don't comb anything out, great.  But I now know you won't be able to see these things until you have a serious infestation on your hands.  So don't be like me, just do some combing with a nit comb as soon as someone says, "Mom, my head itches" and you will conquer this lice epidemic!







Thursday, September 8, 2016

A Boy in Constant Motion

When our son was born, he was so calm.  He was adaptable and flexible.  We could take him to restaurants and he just sat there and looked at everyone.  We could keep him out an hour past nap time, and he didn't start crying.  He was what everyone calls an "easy" baby.

Fast forward to 6 months old when he started eating solid food.  Things began to change.  Feeding him was terribly time-consuming.  I would fix him food, put him in the high chair, and he would eat for 2 minutes.  Then, he would scream and scream until I took him out of the high chair.  Of course he wasn't full, so 45 minutes-1 hour later, he would scream and scream until I made him more food and we would do it over again.  He just could not stand to be trapped in the high chair.

By 8 months, he started crawling.  Unlike our daughter, who did minimal crawling, he clearly recognized his new found freedom and he went from calm and content to the mad explorer.  It escalated even further once he could walk...and climb.  I had to clear every surface of decorative items and breakables.  We had to lock every cabinet and drawer.  You couldn't leave a cup, glass, food, etc. lying around.  The cat food and water had to be hidden.  And he was definitely never unsupervised even for a minute.  I basically just tried to ensure he didn't kill himself.  I couldn't even go into the kitchen and leave him in the living room without me.  It seemed intense, but I thought this a phase and in a few months this will pass.

Well, it didn't.  The eating situation didn't get better either.  I resorted to feeding him every time we were in the car, because he was trapped in the car seat and usually seemed to accept eating then.  It wasn't ideal, but it kept him full and more or less happy.

In fact, overall he seemed very happy.  He required a great deal of attention to protect his safety, but he didn't fuss or throw a lot of tantrums.  But as the months went by and eventually the years, it seemed incredible to me that his need to touch things, move around, and explore didn't subside at all.  I probably said, "Don't touch" or "Don't grab" 100+ times a day.

And meal times were nothing short of awful.  He hated having to sit still, he didn't want to eat the food, and when we made him eat, he would shove lots of food in his mouth and gag on it.  So most of the food ended up back on his plate rather than his stomach.  And of course 30 minutes after meal time, he would cry from hunger.

And there were other things.  From the time he could crawl, he began having a hard time falling asleep.  This didn't alarm me.  After all, sleep patterns and hours of sleep varies from child to child. He was perfectly content to sit in his crib for 45 minutes or an hour, talking to himself, singing, etc. until he fell asleep.  And once he was asleep, he slept hard until morning.

He also seemed to have an extreme fear of loud noises that he couldn't control.  If it was his toy that made the noise, that was fine.  But if he heard a motorcycle or a lawn mower, he panicked.  But again, don't most kids hate loud noises?  Our daughter certainly did.

And we also noticed that he didn't seem to be learning tasks that required motor planning.  Everyday, I had to tell him each step for putting his clothes on.  Every night, I had to explain we had to dry him off before putting his PJs on.  And questions I knew he knew the answer to still seemed to solicit "Why" from him everyday.  He probably said "Why" 50+ times a day.

By age 3, I was definitely wondering if there was a developmental issue.  On one hand, his vocabulary and speaking ability was fantastic. He used words like "intimidating" and "pleasant" and "gravity" in regular sentences.  His pediatrician said he looked great and was developing normally. But on the other hand, it could take up to 3 hours to get him to go to sleep at night.  And then 5 hours later, he would be up again.  He threw 45 minute tantrums everyday over minor frustrations.  He was still gagging on food and resisting sitting still for more than 30 seconds.  He couldn't come close to remembering the steps for getting dressed in the morning.  He insisted on having someone hold his hand to go down stairs every single time.  He still grabbed and touched everything even when he had been told 100 times it would hurt him.  He couldn't come close to throwing a ball.  And he regularly ran into walls, fell, and just in general seemed completely unaware of where his body was in the space around him.  But I kept thinking, he's just 3 three.  I'm exhausted and that's probably why I'm looking for something here.  At 3 years and 3 months, I hit my breaking point.  In one week, he ran straight into a concrete wall at school and cut his eye and cheek.  Two days later, the babysitter called while we were out because he had run head first into the bathtub and had a giant knot on his forehead (that lasted for 6 weeks).  Three days later, if I had not been sitting next to him while we were outside, he would have slammed the back of his head into our limestone retaining wall. I just couldn't take it.  I could not watch him constantly to ensure he didn't injure himself.  I had to find out if there was something else we could do.

So I took him to an occupational therapist for an evaluation.  And to my relief the therapist diagnosed him with an under-developed vestibular system and sensory seeking sensory processing issues.  She recommended therapy once a week for at least a year.  Woohoo!   It turned out there was an explanation for these behaviors and there were things we could do to help him.

So what is the vestibular system you might ask? The vestibular sensory system provides the leading contribution to the sense of balance and spatial orientation for the purpose of contribution to the sense of balance and spatial orientation for the purpose of coordinating movement with balance.  It's a combination of the inner ear organs and the cerebellum working together to tell your body how to be stable and move within space.  It's the root of all fine and gross motor skill development.  Without the vestibular system, gross motor and fine motor skills don't continue to develop normally either.

What is sensory seeking?  What is sensory processing?  Well, in short, his brain isn't very efficient at processing certain sensations.  And his body is telling him to keep seeking more and more stimulation to get enough data to help his brain develop properly.  It explains his constant movement and need to touch and need to ask why.

So would it develop on his own?  Perhaps.  But in the meantime, he would run into walls, gag on food, struggle to hold a crayon, struggle to throw a ball, struggle to keep up with his playmates on the playground.  Even at three it was becoming obvious that he was aware that he couldn't do the same things his classmates could and he was selecting activities he knew he could do.  This was causing him to not engage with his peers and consequently, his social skills with his peers were delayed as well.  So I wasn't willing to wait and see.

In the past six months with therapy and changes in our household, our son and life has improved significantly.  The therapist recommended dressing him in compression clothing (like Under Armor).  This made a huge difference immediately.  His teachers at school called his new shirts "miracle shirts."  When he's wearing the compression shirts, he feels safe and is much more capable of sitting still and listening.  He can focus on the teacher's instruction.  (We even took him to 2 movies this summer, which I never thought would happen.)  We put a compression sheet on his bed and began giving him 1/2 a children's melatonin every night, and suddenly he could go to sleep easily and stay asleep!  Not only could he sleep, he was sleeping longer at night and at nap time than he had ever slept in his life.  I started wondering how much of his developmental issues had been caused just from lack of sleep.  He started taking Omega 3 fish oil everyday and his long tantrums went away immediately.  We put a stool under his feet at the dinner table, so he didn't feel like he was falling out of his chair and low and behold he can actually stay in his chair for a meal now.  Too bad I didn't understand that one a few years ago.  We're still working on the gagging thing, but it has improved.  He uses a tool called a Z-Vibe that vibrates inside his mouth to wake up the feelings in his mouth so that he can tell when he has too much food in his mouth.  With the help of therapy, he can hold a crayon and color an entire picture now.  He doesn't run into walls and fall nearly as often as he used to.  I can leave him unsupervised now while I do something in another room.  He doesn't cry when we take him to school.  In fact, he is eager to do "challenging" work at school now instead of just cleaning the tables and the floors (which was his preference before).  He can dress himself without instruction from me, and he even gets the clothes on correctly most of the time.  He walks downstairs without someone holding his hand.  He tells me he's smart now.  He is much more engaged with his peers and confident with adults.  When we play sports in the backyard as a family, he plays too instead just pushing his lawnmower.  He's just a different kid.

We still have at least 6 more months of therapy and more work to do at home, but I feel so much more confident that he will be capable of keeping up with his peers in school physically and academically.  Intelligence wasn't his issue, but his lack of motor skills was sending him down a path at age 3 of feeling like he wasn't as capable as other kids. It might have also given teachers the impression that he was a behavior problem and therefore, not as intelligent as other kids.  Or that he had ADHD, because he was hyperactive.  It was definitely putting him on the path to thinking he was a problem, that he wasn't as capable, and that he should isolate instead of participate.

I share our story because it might sound familiar to you and help your family or someone you know.  But I also share it for this reason.  Despite how exhausting our son's sensory-seeking behavior has been, I feel fortunate that he is sensory-seeking.  Because he was so exhausting, it pushed me to seek help.  Some kids with these very same issues are under-stimulated, and rather than appearing hyper and in constant motion, they appear quiet, shy, and uncoordinated.  They may have crawled and walked late.  Parents and teachers think they are just shy...that they weren't blessed with athletic ability.  But no, the child just feels like they can't keep up with their peers and rather than try and fail, they just don't participate.  They don't want to play sports.  They might not even want to play on the playground.  And they generally have a look of muscle weakness and poor coordination.  That's not normal.  And even if the child develops physically later on, the damage to their self-esteem is already done.

As a side note, sensory processing disorder is broad and includes a lot of different issues.  The diagnosis is also a bit controversial.  Not all doctors agree on the root causes and issues.  There is definitely overlap in the diagnosis of SPD and autism and SPD and ADHD.  It's possible to have just SPD, too.  But from my perspective, the behaviors are there either way.  And it there is something you can do to improve the behaviors, that should be the parent's focus.

Here are some resources I have found helpful on the subject:

https://www.spdstar.org/
http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/sensory-processing-disorder-checklist.html
https://www.sensorysmarts.com/signs_of_spd.html
http://childmind.org/article/sensory-processing-issues-explained/
https://funandfunction.com
https://www.amazon.com/Out-Sync-Child-Carol-Kranowitz-ebook/dp/B00261OOVM