Dirty hands in your house...

[Brian, ASN, RN]

As school starts back and we gather the yearly supplies, many parents are finding hand sanitizer on the list. Kids use hand sanitizer everywhere they go nowadays: school, grocery store, department stores. However, many experts feel that perhaps we are overusing hand sanitizer. Here are some recent articles. What do you think?

Why I'm Breaking Up With Hand Sanitizer

Fact Sheet: Hand Sanitizers (pdf)

[Curious1alwys, BSN, RN]

Sanitizer is SO gross! It's better than nothing but sorry I'd rather my preschooler and 1st grader WASH their hands ugh. Just seems like they just rub all that gross dirt around. eeew. My husband and I actually just found out that after the bathroom the teachers are not letting the young children wash their hands but rather squirting them with sanitizer. I about had a seizure!!! I don't know what to make of it. However, we don't seem any more healthy than we were decades ago before sanitizer so there you go....:sarcastic:LOVE LOVE LOVE this post though, thank you, I died laughing!!

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Im so against it. Its almost like the TSA for me, a false sense of security. Wash your hands the right way please people.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Multi-resistant strains of microbes are developing for a myriad of reasons...

I wash my hands with plain soap when I am at home. No hand sanitizer, alcohol foam or antibacterial soap can be found in my house. I just stick to plain soap and that's it.

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

Uhh not me at all. I am not going to freak out about germs when not at work. Plus overuse of hand sanitizer just leads to a resistance to antibiotics

[ponymom]

Yep, no hand sanitizer here at home either, although I have always kept it in the truck and horse trailers.

[bluenurse85]

I keep it in my vehicle for use after touching creepy crawlie things like gas pumps, carts, etc. but don't use it at home.

[duskyjewel]

I've long despised the Purell culture. If it's finally dying, I can only be happy about that. Besides, with 5 children and two dogs in the house, any fantasy I might ever have had about it actually being or staying clean was mercilessly destroyed years ago.

Plus, I'd like my kids to actually have strong immune systems when they grow up. I'm not an anti-vaxer or anything, but I do think it's good for kids to get dirty and catch a bug now and then, and there is research that backs me up.

[OnlinePersona, LPN]

i keep hand sanitizer in the bathroom (i use water and soap for myself) for my boyfriend. his way of washing his hands is getting his hands wet without soap for 5 seconds and rubs it off in his clothes. so i just keep the sanitizer in there because its a fool proofs way of keeping him a bit cleaner.

[Wrench Party]

No antibacterial soap in my house. I've already had a lifetime's experience treating multi drug resistant organisms in patients on the floor. I just use regular dish soap for the pots and pans too.

However, I do use a special antiseptic pray for cleaning my goat before milking her, more to keep her healthy and the milk sanitary, than as a precaution for my health.

[nursebtanner]

This one cracks me up