Young girl left with horrific burns after toxic lice shampoo ‘set her on fire’

A young girl was left fighting for her life with severe facial and head burns after a head lice shampoo burst into flames in her hair.

Jodie O’Donoghue, now 10, is still having treatment following the incident back in 2007. She had the Prioderm product in her hair after her parents treated her and her 12-year-old sister Jasmine for a head lice outbreak. As she blew out a candle at the family home in Tipperary, Ireland, the lotion ignited, setting her hair, cheeks and ears alight.

The flames spread from Jodie’s forehead to her hair, cheeks and ears – leaving her with terrible injuries.

Her dad Phil, 45, frantically tried to put out the flames, eventually having to douse her head under water.

Jodie was then rushed to hospital for specialist treatment. Her mum Nichola, 44, said: “Jodie was only seconds away from burning everything on her face. Any longer and she would have lost her eyes and her whole face would have been gone.

“Her sister had the same Lice Treatment on her hair and the same thing could have happened to her. It was awful.”

Jodie, from Tipperary, Ireland, was kept heavily sedated in hospital for six weeks while doctors carried out agonising treatment including skin grafts.

Nichola said: “Her ears recovered but all of her cheeks and forehead had to have skin grafts.

“They took the skin from her head so they had to shave her hair off. It was horrible. This was my little baby girl. She was such a beautiful girl people would swoon over her. She was absolutely perfect.”

Nichola also revealed how Jodie suffered from taunts about her injured face.

She said: “Originally her face looked like red candle wax. We couldn’t go into a shop without people staring, pointing and even shrieking. Every time we went out I felt like I was being stabbed in the heart.

“Luckily her features have recovered and her eyebrows and eyelashes have grown back. She does have an area where the hair has not been able to grow back, but this is hidden by hair that falls over the top of it.”

Jodie, who is now ten, is still receiving treatment six years after her ordeal in March 2007.

And her mum said: “Only now has she been able to talk about what happened.

“She couldn’t look at any pictures of her face. She has been through so much. It is so difficult for her to talk about it.

“The worst place to have a scar is on your face. She is so lucky that the rest of her face will heal.”

It is not known what caused the fire to break out on Jodie’s face. But Nichola has started legal action against the makers of the  Lice Shampoo– winning a production stop of Prioderm.

Nichola said: “I want them to take responsibility for producing such a dangerous product and to compensate us for our costs in her treatment, our trauma and for Jodie.”

The manufacturers of Prioderm, Reckitt Benckiser, told the Irish Daily Mail yesterday: ‘At the time of the incident, which we understand was in 2007, Prioderm was part of the Seton/SSL portfolio which was later acquired by Reckitt Benckiser in November 2010. ‘There are no safety issues with the product when used in accordance with the instructions.’

Know Your Enemy: Head Lice

Lice are a pest that absolutely no one wants to have around and can be a real pain to find and treat. To effectively combat head lice you have to know what you are dealing with first.  You should know what they are, how they come to exist, what they look like, and so on.

 

You should know that head lice are about the same size and shape as a flat sesame seed and they feed off of blood.  In humans they can be found in the scalp.  When they feed they secrete saliva that causes an allergic reaction in the form of the telltale itchiness that is associated with the presence of lice.

 

Lice go through three stages of development.  They begin as eggs called “nits” and then hatch into small, developing lice called “nymphs.”  As they begin feeding they will grow and in seven days they will become full-on adult lice.  As mentioned earlier their saliva will cause your scalp to itch.  Lice often take on the color of a person’s hair as a defense mechanism.  This is especially true with people with dark hair.  The cycle will continue if the lice are not removed.

 

Now that you know this much about lice, get the lice treatment you need to remove them permanently.

A Cavalier Attitude About Head Lice? Blech.

Most of us see head lice as a real problem to be addressed immediately. On the rare occasion that someone decides having lice is “no big deal” there should be a simple dressing down of their cavalier attitude towards this infestation.

 

Lice spread quickly among people, especially in major metropolitan areas. Each store, bus, train, theater, home, classroom, you enter becomes susceptible to their own infestation thanks to your selfish laziness. You are exposing thousands of others potentially to your own plight; meanwhile effective lice remedies abound at decent prices.

 

If you choose to ignore the affect your own head lice might have on others that is really quite egregiously negative behavior, borderline sociopathic really. Of course you are also ignoring the potential health problems of having pests feeding off of your body constantly and reproducing wildly. That itchiness will not be easily ignored. It is highly unlikely you can make it through a day without scratching, let alone the night time where you will likely aggressively scratch in your sleep. Eventually this kind of itching will lead to infections and even potential scarring.

 

Have we scared you off of your cavalier attitude yet? Check out Lice Busters for some lice remedies now.

Head Lice Could Be Anywhere

If you live in an urban area chances are you are sharing almost everything you use everyday with a collection of thousands of strangers. Whether you are sitting on the subway next to a person you have never met before or getting cozy in one of the large comfy chairs at the local Barnes & Noble you have no idea what kind of people sat there before.

 

Thing is, when it comes to contracting head lice you can make all of the concessions you want and still find yourself harboring the itchy little critters. Lice and Nits can live for prolonged periods without a human host and then spring up as soon as they are given the chance to be.

 

Luckily the Lice Busters’ website has a lot of options for lice remedies readily available and ready to help you get rid of the problem before you perpetuate it even further. The ease with which, head lice breed and spread make it imperative that they be treated as soon as they are discovered. While it may be fate’s unfair joke that you would get head lice you do not want the karma of having knowingly spread them further. Getting a treatment lotion and lice comb from Lice Busters will help you get lice free.

The Media Trusts Lice Busters

The market is, to a large extent, flooded with products purporting to be the best way to handle a lice infestation. There are soaps and shampoos not to mention special combs to get rid of lice. When it comes to deciding which of these lice products is the most reliable? it get sort of tricky. Unlike so many other products there is no real trial and error process for finding a brand you like. No one can afford that sort of time when it comes to a perpetually spreading lice problem.

 

For my money landing on the Lice Busters Blog is the best thing that could happen to a family trying to handle a lice problem. The site itself makes it clear that this is an accredited business that understands dealing with lice.

 

The Lice Busters’ lice remedies have been featured on a wide array of major media outlets that are readily displayed on each page of this website. You see credible news sources like the New York Times, NPR, the Wall Street Journal and the Daily News. It would seem that when the media needs to talk about lice they call the folks over at Lice Busters.

 

These sorts of endorsements are not everything but they will make you feel better about the options.

Humankind’s Fight Against Lice

Lice have been, and continue to be, one of the most common parasitic ailments among humans. Kids ages 3 to 12 are particularly vulnerable. Young girls are the most at risk because of their long hair.

 

Lice have plagued mankind for thousands of years. Lice were found on the heads of Egyptian mummies and ancient Babylonians. Aristotle complained of lice, though he mistakenly thought they were a disease that springs forth from the body.

 

Lice infestation was a big problem during WWI with J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis both suffering from lice on the front lines. Unlike head lice, which do not spread disease, the body lice there were prevalent then carried a number of dangerous infections. Some people suspect one in five illnesses on the front line were a result of lice bites. Even today body lice continue to spread disease in areas of the developing world.

 

Head lice do not communicate any disease but have proved harder to eradicate in the developed world. Some studies even suggest that head lice evolved to not carry diseases so they could not kill us, their human hosts. Today however, lice are a menace. Luckily modern lice remedies can usually stop them dead in their tracks.