How to protect yourself from infections after work?

Emergent, RN · Jan 31, 2017

I don't do anything like that. I do make sure I eat properly, and get plenty of sleep. I take probiotics and Vit D in winter, plus extra Vit C lately. Reasonable hand hygiene of course.

I rarely get sick.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Jan 31, 2017

I take absolutely no special precautions to prevent infections after work.

When I worked as a floor nurse, I did not change my scrubs or shoes before heading home. I never bathe in antibacterial soap. I washed my scrubs together with my regular clothes in warm water and plain laundry detergent.

You are more likely to become sick in your community than you ever will at a hospital or other healthcare facility. The communities where you and I live have masses of people with MRSA, ESBL, pseudomonas, C.diff, VRE, E.coli, TB and other microbes, but you do not know who they are.

These infected people handle the same gas station pumps and shopping carts you and I use. They press the same buttons at the bank ATM machine you and I touch. They are the people in line behind you with hacking coughs who might have TB. They are the individuals who use the bathroom without washing their hands before picking over fresh fruits and veggies in the store's produce section.

Healthcare facilities are cleaner and more sanitary than the average person's home because they get sanitized with potent cleaning agents by EVS (a.k.a. housekeeping staff) one or more times per day. Most homeowners or apartment dwellers do not sanitize or deeply clean their living quarters daily.

The moral of my story is to not be so afraid of germs. In fact, embrace some of them. Every exposure fortifies your immunity.

meanmaryjean, DNP, RN · Jan 31, 2017

One does not train for a marathon by lying on the couch and avoiding exposure to exercise. One does not build a healthy immune system by being a germophobe. You encounter more cooties at the grocery store than at work anyhow.

Calalilynurse · Jan 31, 2017

I work on peds too I don't do all that. Wipe your phone if it makes you feel better because everyone is not clean that touches the computers and phones. I just try and take a shower after work. I am rarely sick.

Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN · Jan 31, 2017

I don't do anything special and I am rarely sick.

you are more likely to get MRSA at Walmart that at work

loriangel14, RN · Feb 1, 2017

I don't do any of that . I wear my shoes home and wash my scrubs with everything else.

brownbook · Feb 1, 2017

Sorry about your OCD. Are you under a doctor's care? It can be a debilitating illness so I don't think whatever we say will help.

Our bodies have more bacterial cells than human cells. (Or something like that I'm too lazy to look up the statistics again, I have posted about this topic many times).

Evidence based practice recommend babies born via c-sections are wiped down with gauze containing fluids/bacteria from their mother's birth canal because they need exposure to mother's bacteria.

Evidenced based practice is studying the bacterial content of the stomach's of children with Autism and giving them fecal transplants to change or improve (I don't remember the details) the bacteria in their stomachs. Showing some improvement their behavior.

Bacteria are our friends!

nutella, MSN, RN · Feb 1, 2017

No - I have never done anything like that and I can not imagine doing it. Shoes - ok, I can see how one may want to take them off before going home or leave them at the entrance at home.

I did wash my scrubs separately but that was more to make sure that I take them out right away to hang them up so they do not wrinkle.

You mention that you have OCD - you probably wipe more than the average nurse. This is the way you deal with the contamination fear, which is anxiety. The question is always if and how it impacts your life/quality of life and how it impacts people around you. Does it stress you out to go through the rituals/ does it take a long time?

I am just putting out that a lot of people deal with anxiety in a variety of ways. Having said that - the thing with OCD is that it can get too much because the more "rituals" you perform, the more false positive reinforcement your brain gets. If you ask because you are worried about the extent of your rituals, you should probably look how it impacts your life.

If you are truly concerned, you can look for a therapist who uses CBT to see if it helps. CBT has done a lot for my child who has OCD though a realistic attitude helps as well. I mean, if the whole ritual takes 5 minutes and you do it once and after that you are ok and do not have much other OCD stuff going on perhaps it is acceptable to you. But if you spend a lot of time with it or/and have to repeat it a lot or also have a lot of other OCD stuff going on - that is a different story.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2017

No one is allowed to touch the wardrobe that holds your uniforms-yet you walked around in them all day and didn't get sick, right?

Look, there isn't anything too extreme in what you've described. But we know with OCD, these behaviors usually escalate. It's not likely that you'll stay happy with your current routine.

There is help available for people with OCD, with germaphobia specifically. DO seek out help-CBT has been known to truly work for people with your problem. Address this now before it causes you more problems.

Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP · Feb 1, 2017

I wear shoe covers at work so my work shoes go right in with everyone else's in the kitchen. Scrubs go in the hamper with all the other clothes. I wash them separately but only because I wash them on a certain setting, not because I'm afraid of germs. I usually take a shower as soon as I get home - partly because I feel gross and partly because it just helps me relax. The same people you see in the hospital are the same people who go to Walmart and grab the shopping cart before you, who go to the bathroom and don't wash their hands well or who scratch their butt and touch the bananas before you do. That's gross but it's true, and if it hasn't killed us by now it's not likely to.

Handwashing and reasonable personal hygiene are really all you need to do with a healthy immune system and routine exposures. I don't get sick a whole lot (knock on wood).

allnurses Guide · Feb 1, 2017

Outside of the universal precautions that we are all familiar with I take no special precautions other than leaving my hospital shoes on the front porch when I enter the house. I work in Psych and we encounter a large homeless population. As you can guess they don't usually have the best hygiene. We don't culture nares when they come in so we have no way of knowing if they have MRSA. Still studies show that about 10-15% of the population are MRSA carriers. I rarely get sick other than the occasional cold. My family is also pretty healthy. My son wrestles and there has been an MRSA outbreak among wrestlers. I just make sure he showers after practice with plain soap and water. We don't use antibacterial products in our home. I read a study published on the CDC website which stated that such products actually contribute to treatment resistant organisms and impaired immune function. We do eat right and exercise and I don't think in 15 years I've ever caught anything from a patient.

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