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Why do we as an society, today fear germs more then as societies in the past were?
Saw this thread on hand washing on another forum that I belong to awhile back and wanted to post the questions and my answers to this.
What an interesting thread.
1. How often do you wash your hands? Have to say I'm frequent hand washer.
2. When do you wash your hands? Soap and water
3. What soap(s) do you use to wash your hands? Depends regular hand soap or liquid soap. At the same time only use antibacterial soap when I feel theres a need for it.
4. How do you prevent dry hands from all the washing? Have to say lotion, which I should use more often then I currently use it. Have started to use ointment this past winter because I over heard one of my co-workers talking to another co-worker. Anyway, she uses it during the winter and don't know when she started using it herself. At the same time I wished I knew.
This is a subject that has a few sides to it, I'll give mine here:
As a normal working, living, breathing human being, I wash my hands whenever they become visibly soiled, or at bath time. I use regular soap or dish soap (Dawn). Most of the germs I can/will/have been exposed to during the course of a normal day will do me very little harm because my body has built up an immunity to them with a few exceptions. This is true for anyone else that grew up eating dirt (most of us ).
As a hospital worker I wash my hands after any contact with a potentially contaminated surface, either within a patient's room or one a machine or otherwise, so I am constantly washing my hands both with soap (hospital anti-microbial) and water, and water free alcohol based rubs (Purell). The reason for this is that there are bugs in hospitals that simply live on the walls that will kill a person if it gets in an open wound or mucous membranes. MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is a bacterial infection that is highly resistant to some antibiotics and this is the light weight hitter of the hospital "Super Bugs". There are a myriad of others that have grown to super status because they live in a semi-sterile environment.
So whether I worry about germs or not depends highly on my current location. If I'm in an area where there is a high chance for communicable infections to occur, I wash and wear masks. If I'm just out and about, I wash my hands when they become visibly soiled.
In other words, I'm not very worried about it unless there is good reason to be. In the normal day-to-day of things, you are more likely to get hit by a bus than to get infected with a severe infection unless you are in a high risk area (schools, daycare, healthcare etc).
Seriously. I will examine every public bathroom I go into before I use it. I didn't even realize I did it till my mother pointed out it took me 15 minutes to pee every time we went to dinner.
Peoples germs just...freak me out. If I know you...and I know you bathe regularly...I'm cool with you and your germs...But if I don't know you and I don't know where you've been? Don't...yeah...-gets the willies just thinking about it-
__________________
Our beliefs define the limits of our allowed experience
*hands Macha a vitamin C tablet*
It be the body of the Great Orange that shall be a salve to your soul in regards to the deevils of micro-organisms.
As for me...
I wash my hands when they are dirty. I wash them after going potty (yes I said potty deal with it. I wash them when I prepare foods.
If I am in the kitchen I use the Dawn or 1$ store whatever detergent by the sink. If I am in the bathroom then I use the liquid soap there ( bar soap gets nasty slimey!!!
At one point I went through a short lived period of trauma induced OCD and refused to touch new things without gloves on, constantly washed my hands and was pretty much afraid of any skin contact whatsoever. Boy THOSE were fun days!
I personally think that with all the spraying, antimicrobing and the like that in the end we are just shorting ourselves. We NEED exposure of some sorts in order to keep healthy. If you sterilize everything then your body never gets a chance to build up an immunity to things. Believe it or not people can even build symbiotic ( or parasitic) relationships with the microbes in their environment.
My grandmother had a horrrrrid house ( death trap for air quality and more) and somehow she thrived. In fact when she got taken to the hospital ( she injured herself ) she got SICK in the sterile environment. Awwwww. She missed her germs.
*hands out vitamin C tablets to all*
Courtesy of the Church of Citrus.
1. How often do you wash your hands? As needed (before preparing food, after bathroom stops, after playing in the dirt....)
2. When do you wash your hands? Soap/water
3. What soap(s) do you use to wash your hands? NOT ANTIBACTERIAL - nasty stuff. Prefer a natural, no sulfates, etc. liquid soap.
4. How do you prevent dry hands from all the washing? Lotion - currently love a Burt's Bees one I found (milk/honey)
I prefer to stay away from soaps/lotions that have the parabens, sulfates, etc. and I LOVE the Bronner's soap line. I am learning to use grapefruit seed extract, a natural antibacterial also.
You know, and I don't mean to offend anyone but...
Those parents that won't allow a single damned germ to touch their child? Yea, thats not healthy. Buying all this ANTI-BACTERIAL crap ALL the time can actually hinder the immune system rather than help it.
Germs can be healthy and are required to keep the body going.
I see kids now that are 15-16 years old and they are SMALL because their parents don't force them OUT of the house (i.e they play video games all day and stay on the net) and into the sun and fresh air and then force them to shower with all this anti-anything living that could maybe, possibly, ever give you grief stuff...
Ugh..
I don't want to be sneezed on but my Gods I do want some germs to keep my immune system up to par.
__________________
Our beliefs define the limits of our allowed experience
I see kids now that are 15-16 years old and they are SMALL because their parents don't force them OUT of the house (i.e they play video games all day and stay on the net) and into the sun and fresh air and then force them to shower with all this anti-anything living that could maybe, possibly, ever give you grief stuff...
Ugh..
I don't want to be sneezed on but my Gods I do want some germs to keep my immune system up to par.
I have been wondering this too...is this why there are so many tiny and or fragile people....Toothpicks on bones?????
I have recently been/becoming germ phobic...especially with this whole swine flu w.e.....
I have been washing hands after bathroom trips, nursing home training coming back...HOT water and soap. Dont touch any thing, until you're out the "DANGER ZONE"...
I have been using purell, after rubbing eyes to get the grit out, blowing nose, coughing and/or sneezing....
and people are walking on pins and needles around me...most the symptoms are the same as sinus problems and/or infections. I am now just getting over the second ear/sinus infection in 3 months...when most of this phobia or fear being spread.
I was told to take 2000mg vitamin C not the juice...guy/customer said he hasn't been sick in 20+ years.
Germs 
).
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