Of Lice and Lyme

One of the symptoms I live with on an ongoing basis is that the entire surface of my skin itches. I have had to work quite hard to stop scratching myself to bleeding. How this manifests on my head is that it always feels as if something is crawling on my scalp. I have a persistent case of The HeebieJeebies.

Recently, there was an outbreak of head lice in my daughter's school. She was one of the unlucky souls who ended up bringing them home. Given her waist length hair and her propensity for hugging, I guess we can't be too surprised.

This was our second round of battling off head lice. My head had never stopped itching from the first round and now I started obsessing about it. I was scratching my head all the time. I did all the treatments we did for her. I was constantly running the professional, metal, nit comb through my hair. As it would emerge from the dense forest on my head with white flecks almost every time, I was convinced that I had a horrible infestation.

If you've ever had to get rid of head lice, you know its a tedious thing. Put oil on the hair for hours, wash it out with special shampoo, put in special conditioner which you leave on for a while before rinsing out. Then the multi-hour inspection for nits. You have to wash all your bedding, clothing towels. You must spray all your upholstered furniture. For 10 days you must be vigilant and you have to repeat the big hair treatment process at the end.

We had barely recovered from our previous engagement with lice and I was now really certain that I had a bad case, so we decided to call in a professional to make sure we did all that we could as quickly as possible.

My daughter invented the title "Professional Lice Expert" (PLE). When our PLE arrived, I told her our history and let her know that after what I was seeing on the nit comb, I was absolutely sure that I was ground zero for apocalypse by lice. I was completely freaked out.

Four hours and $500 later, I learn that I did not have lice at all. I did have dry scalp. So did my daughter. Those white flakes on the nit comb were dead skin. A few oil treatments for my scalp and even that has been addressed. I was so relieved to realize that I was not ground zero.

I still have the HeebieJeebies. My head has that creepy crawly feeling, but I'm really resisting the urge to scratch. Its easier to do that when you have confirmation that nothing is actually there.

Though this is a minor thing compared to all the symptoms I live with, it does demonstrate the challenge of having neuropathies. Our nervous system is supposed to work like the lights on your dashboard: an indicator of some kind of activity. I've lost the ability to know if something is actually happening because my indicator is always lit up.

Funny, they can't figure out why check engine light in my car is always lit up, either!