Have you been ever gotten sick from working as a nurse?

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I know this question may seem silly so I apologize in advance. I'm not referring to common colds, stomach viruses, etc. I know those can be common esspecially in the beggining since your immune system has not adjusted to deal with so many things at once. BUT have you been infected or close to being infected with something serious?:o

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Specializes in Med surg, LTC, Administration.

Second attempt, my first vanished. Anyway, I hope you are okay. Yes, about 25 years ago I got a needle stick. The needle was full of HIV+ blood. I was a mental and emotional wreak for almost two years. Fortunately, I did not contact the virus. If something like this has happened to you, besides the obvious testing, please get counseling. The angst, is beyond my articulation abilities and I pray you or anyone will never have to go through it. Please update and know, someone is with you and pulling for you. Also, no question is silly, especially one as serious as this. I may add, our director at the time, did contract the disease through a needle stick and has since died. She lived only five years once infected. Peace!

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Yes, thanks for the answer. I'm okay and glad you're okay too. Just doing lots of research and there's nothing better then hearing real experiences from real nurses. Hearing a lot of dangers of working as a nurse and just wanting to learn experiences to learn to prevent them. Or do my best to try to at least.

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I am not a nurse yet- I am currently in the nursing program and working as an aide- but I did get cellulitis. I got a bee sting and developed a nasty infection at the sting site. My doctor said that working in health care more than likely caused the infection, as we are constantly exposed to, and a lot of us colonize, staph (the cause of my cellulitis). A round of doxycycline cleared it up, but if I had waited a day or two longer to go to the doc it could have been much worse.

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Yes. Seriously sick more than once. Never got definitive diagnoses, but know the illnesses were directly work related.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

dh was cleaning up a c.diff patient who was having projectile diarrhea and got a face full of the stuff. he got sick a few weeks later, and turned out to have c. diff. it triggered ulcerative colitis, and now he has a chronic illness for which he takes 12-16 pills a day every day. when he originally got sick, he was having up to 30 stools a day and was bleeding. his h/h dropped to the point that he was so pale he almost glowed in the dark, and his albumin was

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Specializes in ED, ICU, Education.

MRSA. Gross. I'm sure we all have it by now though if we work in a hospital setting.

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Yep- ALMOST got sick, decades ago.

This was 'back in the day' when we didn't know all that much about HIV/AIDS except that it killed. I'd just given an IM to an end - stage AIDS patient, and went to snip the needle off the syringe (which is what we had to do way back in the day- anyone else remember those funky red stick-n-scissor containers?).

I was too new to nursing to know I could have told my supervisor that I was too frightened of the pt's disease to accept the assignment as his nurse. So, terrified of the needle I'd just used, I braced one hand on the red needle - snip -container, to give me better control, and went to stick the needle in it with my other hand ... and I was shaking so hard from fear that I ended up sticking the needle point directly in the web of my index finger and thumb. My life flashed in front of my eyes, and I immediately went into his bathroom to wash my hands and to try to force the spot to bleed, trying to flush out any contamination. I was in there for about half an hour, even though I felt bad for the patient (like I was treating him like a leper or something). Long story short, I didn't get HIV or even hepatitis (which he also had), but I lived in terror for literally months (we didn't have fast tests then).

And now days? Well, I paid for a meningitis shot (nearly $100) the day after I was assigned to a rule-out patient and found we didn't have the right masks available. I also now carry goggles and a proper mask with me at all times.

I'm also mindful of where I am at, fatigue wise, and try to be extra careful then. I've heard most nursing accidents happen in the last 4 hours of the '3rd day in a row of 12 hour shifts'.

We can't be risk free, only careful.

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Hi am new to this please someone tok to me

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Specializes in CVICU, Obs/Gyn, Derm, NICU.
I am not a nurse yet- I am currently in the nursing program and working as an aide- but I did get cellulitis. I got a bee sting and developed a nasty infection at the sting site. My doctor said that working in health care more than likely caused the infection, as we are constantly exposed to, and a lot of us colonize, staph (the cause of my cellulitis). A round of doxycycline cleared it up, but if I had waited a day or two longer to go to the doc it could have been much worse.

You can reduce your chances of contracting a staph infection if you observe your universal precautions diligently and pay particular attention to hand washing

You shouldn't pick up a staph infection at work.

As an aside ....most of my p'ts with cellulitis don't have particularly healthy lifestyles. They often smoke, drink heavily, poor nutrition, obese, poor personal hygiene. Not always - but often

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Specializes in Intensive Care: Medical and Surgical.

In our closed unit, most of the cases had severe types of PTB and CAP. But somehow I haven't experience having severe colds or symptoms of infection in my five years of service. We'll, I've never skip my outdoor activity during off duty, long-distance mountainbike to be specific. I guess it kinda help.:)

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dh was cleaning up a c.diff patient who was having projectile diarrhea and got a face full of the stuff. he got sick a few weeks later, and turned out to have c. diff. it triggered ulcerative colitis, and now he has a chronic illness for which he takes 12-16 pills a day every day. when he originally got sick, he was having up to 30 stools a day and was bleeding. his h/h dropped to the point that he was so pale he almost glowed in the dark, and his albumin was

because c. diff was contracted on the job, isn't this a workers comp situation? would like to learn more about how one handles illness/injury contracted on the job in health care. i enter nursing school in the fall. i realize my responsibility is to follow procedures that minimize risk, but there still is a risk. thanks!

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