A hairdresser has gone viral after sharing a video of a child’ horrific head lice infestation on TikTok – which had been building for six months and took nine hours to remove.
Rachel Maroun, 21, from Sydney, Australia, works as a head lice technician and shares clips of her most severe cases online.
One recent case was that of a 12-year-old girl whose family were struggling to treat the lice at home as her disabilities meant she could not handle the combing process.
The child was getting “overstimulated” so her parents decided to make the long journey to visit Rachel and get professional treatment.
When she came in, the hairdresser was stunned by the huge infestation, with lice crawling all over her scalp, neck and clothes.
“I was extremely surprised to see the amount of eggs her thick hair was housing,” Rachel told Jam Press.
“Typically this case would have been better solved in shaving the hair, but for a 12-year-old who basically was a brunette Rapunzel I did not want to take that away from her.
“I spent about three hours over each appointment combing through her hair. Some spots I couldn’t even go near on the first treatment – above her ear was filled with eggs and it had caused to hair to be locked up in a sticky situation.
“We took our time and just went with what she was comfortable with – and we did it.”
Over the course of three appointments – each of which took three hours – the expert was able to finally remove all traces of lice from her head.
Rachel filmed a clip of the huge infestation, sharing the clip on TikTok where it garnered 23 million views and 648,000 likes.
One user said: “I suddenly feel very itchy.”
“Poor girl that must have been so sore glad there ppl like you out there that can help it can be hard getting rid of them,” another person commented. [sic]
Someone else added: “Honestly the ppl that do what you do are heroes. one time my kids brought home life and I tried for months to get rid of it spent all kinds of money.” [sic]
“IM GOING TO CRY,” commented another person.
One user said: “WHAT IS THAT.”
“Omg I’m so sorry,” added someone else.
After removal, the child was left thrilled with the results.
Rachel said: “I could tell immediately that she felt the difference.
“Our first treatment she was a little quiet but by the time I had removed the final egg from her hair, she was smiling from ear to ear and telling me all about her friends and how she was going to protect her hair in the future.
“It made it worth all the hard work and pain – and her family were also super relieved to know that she was finally free of the lice.”
