The Alternative Medicine Cabinet: Cetaphil for Lice

MARCH 24, 2010,

The Science: Every year, millions of Americans are treated for head lice, a vast majority of them schoolchildren. Conventional treatment usually calls for a neurotoxic insecticide, but few regimens are entirely effective, and in recent years drug-resistant lice have emerged.

But some doctors advocate an inexpensive and simple alternative that requires little more than a bottle of Cetaphil skin cleanser and a hair dryer. In one study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2004, 133 children with hard-to-treat head lice were recruited and subjected to a regimen that involved coating the hair with Cetaphil, combing it, then blow-drying it until it hardens and shampooing it out eight hours later. The idea is to create a “shrink-wrap” effect that suffocates lice. According to the study, this method produced a roughly 95 percent success rate when it was repeated once a week for three weeks. That beats the general success rate of more conventional treatments like Malathion (about 17 percent) and Dimethicone (about 73 percent).

“It creates a game for parents and kids,” said Joe Graedon, a pharmacologist and author of the book “The People’s Pharmacy Guide to Home and Herbal Remedies.” “You create a helmet head, and you shampoo it out in the morning.” To prevent flaking, he added, throw on a shampoo cap.

The Risks: Cetaphil is extremely mild and is not known if cause any significant side effects.

COMENT 

We are faced with an article published in the New York Times on 24 March 2012, dealing with lice treatment that is becoming increasingly popular due to lice resistance to existing treatments.

Lice are the cross of many parents. They are tiny parasitic insects that proliferate wingless in human hair and feed on trace amounts of blood drawn from the scalp.

As much disgust that can cause, lice are a very common problem, especially among children three to 12 years (more common in girls than in boys).

While there is more novel methods to treat these parasitesin this text is explained a fast and effective alternative is "a bottle of Cetaphil skin cleanser and hair dryer." It is not quite over and natural measure but it is a chemically simpler and less harmful than other lice products.

This shows that much progress we make sometimes the simplest things are the most useful, reminding me, for example, the use of vinegar to prevent lice that many of our mothers have used with us.

So it your children have lice lice you can choose among many solutions, depending on your values and the gravity of the infection. What it is recommended is to look for them frecuently in the children's head due to  they are passed by some other heads quickly and very easily and they can be a nuisance for our little loves.