Was a bit gob-smacked by the number of comments on the Travelling Wilbury's...good though aren't they...and also thank you very much for the lovely comments and the links, on the article about the Mad March Hares...have to confess to being jealous over Off-Cuts up close and personal encounter with an Otter though...
Now I have a feeling I might have asked this before...but can't remember so I'll just have to repeat myself if I have...
Along with most of you, I take supplements in the form of vitamins...Vit C with Zinc and Vit D...gave up on the Manuki honey...it's so expensive and I personally thought it tasted foul...I use an anti-bacterial hand cleaner before pushing supermarket trolleys and after handling money...apparently money is heaving with germs...and have a squirt of First Defence when we go anywhere.
But is all this actually necessary do you think?
However can you know whether or not any of those precautions are working...
I rarely caught a cold before COPD and still don't...chest infections certainly, but First Defence wouldn't be calling a halt to them anyway or ought it to do so?
Shouldn't washing your hands properly be enough... after you've been shopping for instance...without resorting to a hand cleanser...you're not sucking your thumb after you've spent the last half an hour picking out tins of beans and cartons of milk after all...
Are we perhaps falling for the advertising hype or are we actually benefitting from the extras we swallow, rub on and wash with...
For once the mouse feels strongly over something enough to reply.
Soap and water is as good as antibacterial cleanser and always after gong to the loo.
The hairs up our nose were put there to prevent the nasties getting up there. However on oxy with nasal canula perhaps a little preventative will help.
The more we try to wrap ourselves up the less our immune system will work on its own.
I do not always wash my hands before eating after playing with dogs.
I always do before preparing food but that is to make sure I don't pass on my germs.
As my nan used to say eat a peck of dirt before you die. Just don't die knowing it.
Anyway who can honestly sat that after little Jimmy/Jane has dropped the dummy in the street you did not pick it up, give it a suck and stuff it back in the screaming mouth. 🍼
A few years ago a professor Reagan from one of the London teaching hospitals searched into a lot of things and when she did first defence she found that it did not stop you getting a cold but if you had a cold quite often it lasted less time if you used first defence. She also found that Boots Protect and perfect face cream worked well and aqueous cream ( a few pounds for a huge tub). Was the best body cream to use. Last year I asked the professor at the National Aspergillosis Centre what precautions I should take in company - mainly because my elderly Aunt was in a Care Home and someone always has a cough and cold there and he said the best I could do was wash my hands often. You can't really getaway from stuff that is in the air and they are all over (he meant not just in the care home it was just that the people there were old and frail and more likely to fall in from those bacterial/ viruses). So the answer is to wash your hands frequently and if you can't wash them then using a wet wipe or gel would work.
We are big on hand washing in this house vashti, especially after using the loo and going shopping. I hsve hand gel just for use in a cafe say and tea tree just inside the nostrils for any nasty germs. Not probably recommended for oxygen users though. Good old soap and water can't be beat. Xxx
Have to agree with all these replies, Vashti, I use soap and water a lot, I don't have copd, but bronchiectasis, aspergilloma, and often a flare up of pseudomonas, I am on permanent steroids for RA, so don't have the best immune system going. Like you I don't get a lot of colds, but do get infections. I tend to take more precautions if one of my grandchildren is poorly with sickness bugs, and I give hugs instead of kisses when they have bad colds, but other than that hand washing is my biggest prevention strategy. janx
I'm a bit unsure on this one. At one point we had 2 dogs , 3 cats, a rabbit , a snake( which I insisted on hand washing) & my children, myself or my husband were rarely ill, especially never had many tummy bugs. In 2007 I went through chemo & radiotherapy which wiped my immune system out & I must admit I've had more colds since then. Maybe as you get older your immune systems decline, however I think it is air-born germs that harm us. I have an anti-bacterial soap dispenser beside my kitchen sink however just have a nice floral one in the toilet. However I must admit to spraying my Dettol spray when a grand-child has been visiting, who is coughing!, door handles, air, couch etc. Unfortunately my nasal hairs didn't grow back after chemo so everything gets up there, germs included...I'm kissing dogs & kittens to bring my immunity back up &of course eating healthy & exercising ...so yes I think the advertising sucks us in xx
I wear gloves when out and about, mainly because I have Raynaud's phenomenon, but they are quite effective at shielding me from germs on door handles and seats on buses and trains.
We are brainwashed by the box in the corner Vashti, and it rules us by fear! "If you have a cough for more than three weeks it could be lung cancer" Hello! I've had coughs for three years and it wasn't. "Kills 99% of known germs", but what about the unknown ones that lurk waiting to pounce, what about that 1% which survives all the washing powders? Well yes, they now have another anti-bacterial you can add, and next year there'll be another and another. As for your bleeding gums, nuff said except I ignore blood from many parts of my body, especially my poor skin which has been constantly ripped by puppy claws and rose bushes ....the list goes on and on.
I admit to an anti-bacterial handwash gel next to the sink, but a doctor on tv said this was no better than soap and water which we all use (much handier though - scuse pun). I reckon a bottle of bleach is all that's needed to keep the home fairly bug-free, and a decent pro-biotic pill, acidophillus, helps protect the body - I think, or have I, too, fallen for the hype?
I know it's my hobby-horse but it can't be coincidence that I've gone from 3/4 infections needing abs and steroids every year to 4 mild bug attacks in six years since I switched to vaping. Of course the liquid contains a sanitizer used in air-con systems and I always have a sneaky "pull" in crowded places. especially supermarkets where someone is always close to me when they start sneezing. I used to keep First Defence in the house but I think you have to be very quick off the mark for it to work.
I have used "Star Drops" for general cleaning for the past 40 years, so cheap and cheerful (probably because you never see it advertised) and they now make a version with bleach so am hoping to be even more healthy!!!
Just hand-washing regularly, Vashti. But I turned the tap on with 'dirty' hands...how do I now turn it off without getting germs back??? Oh nooooooo...
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janx
Thank you so much to all you dear people for replying and caring so much. The news is good and bad
an update from me plus: A MASSIVE THANK YOU
A BIG THANK YOU
