Potomac Lice Lady Leaves No Louse Unfound

When your child’s school nurse calls to tell you to pick up your child from school, that he or she has head lice, what do you do?

You could call the .

Being the daughter of a doctor and the mom of a special needs child very little fazes her, not even lice. In fact, Salzberg says she enjoys helping panicked families remove the creatures from their hair. Since opening in July 2011, she has removed lice from 120 people.

Salzberg decided to open her Potomac Lice Lady business two months ago, after an interest in the topic of lice and their removal lead her to help a number of friends tackle their own lice problems. 

“People don’t get head lice from poor personal hygiene,” Salzberg said. “They get it from head-to-head contact. It can be spread when you cuddle with your child or if kids put their heads together at school.”

Lice can be spread through sharing hats and helmets, brushes, combs, bathroom towels, blankets, toys, bedding or furniture. Children can commonly return home from camps with head lice, after sharing helmets and hats.

“If one child in a family has head lice, the parents and siblings also need to be checked,” Salzberg said. “It is also important to notify the school and children’s friends if head lice is detected.”

Salzberg’s treatment consists of a screening for lice that usually takes about an hour. If lice are found, she applies an organic nit and glue dissolver to remove the excess skeletons from the hair shaft.

Next, wearing dermatological magnifying glasses, she parts the hair into tiny sections and combs through each section strand by strand, finding and removing each bug and nit. This process, called the Shepherd method, is time-consuming but necessary.

“All it takes is one bug left – and back they come.  It’s a pain-staking process, but I usually get them all,” Lauren said.

Symptoms of head lice include itching around the ears and back of the neck. Sometimes one will see the nits attached to a hair shaft, or black specks – lice feces – on collars, pillows or in the hair.

For more information about the Potomac Lice Lady, call Lauren at 240-390-NITS or e-mail lauren@potomaclicelady.com. Lauren’s website is available at www.potomaclicelady.com.