uh oh
Oh shit
Welp.
THIS IS WHAT MY 10TH GRADE BIOLOGY TEACHER WARNED US ABOUT AND WHY I DON’T USE HAND SANITIZER.
Aubri, people refusing to clean their hands is EXACTLY the reason these bacteria are spread around enough to be a problem.
If we kept our bodies clean properly and wore clean clothes and protective clothing, we could render resistance to antibiotics a non-problem; but because people don’t wash their hands, tens of thousands of people die daily of diseases that frankly they should never have had.
Hand sanitizer kills 99% of germs
Which germs stay?
The strongest 1%
And those multiply and end up being resistant to being killed and causes problems like this.
At least that’s what my teacher said.
WASHING your hands with soap is different from using hand sanitizer.
Heyyyyy. So here’s some cool nursing school info: the reason it’s encouraged to use traditional soap instead of hand sanitizer is because hand sanitizer is typically “antibacterial” (yes, there are soaps like this too), so yeah basically what happens is you kill off all the bacteria that is normally on your skin.
We’re kinda gross in that we have a whole host of bacteria already living on us, called our normal flora, that basically keeps bad bacteria out because there’s no more room for them to grow (gross, and functional!).
So, when you use antibacterial substances, hand sanitizer, antibacterial handsoaps, etc. you’re killing off your normal flora that would normally keep bad bacteria at bay. This gives rise to infection because obviously you do all kinds of things with your hands, and it’ll eventually get into your system. The same thing happens when you take oral antibiotics. Your normal gut flora gets taken out, and a bad bacteria gets introduced (the most common one you’ll see is Clostridium difficile which leads to some nasty diarrhea that will. not. go. away.).
To prevent all that from happening, avoid using antibacterials (there’s really no difference in using regular, non-antibacterial handsoap and antibacterial handsoap, studies have shown this), and don’t take antibiotics unless they’re narrow spectrum and you’re absolutely positive that you actually have a bacterial infection as opposed to a viral. This can help prevent bugs like this from becoming antibiotic resistant and causing problems like this!
@aubscares and @sees-mirrored-mystery
Cool! Thanks.
Wow!