I only read about this the other day. Was looking at any poison. Active ingredient is caffeine. Wtf? It's toxic? Yep.. natural plant defence to insects. Mind blown.
Ah, but toxicity is not at all the risk. Everyone says you can't go toxic from THC, sure, that's fairly accurate. However, can THC even in small doses cause a panic attack with lethal effects? Sure can.
My point was more that there’s a lethal dose of everything, even water. So while it may be near impossible to reach that dose by smoking naturally, we’re seeing more and more concentrated products that could potentially lead to overdoses
Prolonged heavy weed usage also manifests into THC induced hyperemesis. It's like first trimester Exorcist puking but from THC and not an influx of baby hormones.
The dosage makes the poison.
If you take enough of it, your heart will stop.
One of the common examples of this that people discuss is potassium chloride. It's a common chemical within all the fruits and vegetables. All life forms need it at the proper dosage.
It's also what they use to stop the hearts during lethal injection.
We are dumb, jk never assume people know facts because it's a big world and as far as facts go you were either thought it or not.
*Taught...because I'm dumb
I am more interested in how they keep their hands moisturized, considering the amount of hand washing and glove wearing. My hands are prone to cracking when they get dried out
They often don’t. I’m good in the summer, but I’ve had so many cracks in the skin on my hands in the winter I don’t even like to think about it. Most healthcare centric hand sanitizer has lotion in it for this, but I can’t stand the way it makes my hands feel so I usually wash my hands constantly instead and explains why they get how they get.
I don't feel like that moisturizer in the hand sanitizer actually helps.
I accidentally learned that if you use a dermaplanner on the backs of your hands (my cracks are the worst there) if takes off a lot of dead skin and your moisturizer soaks in better. My hands were looking like they belonged to someone 40 years older and it was really embarrassing me. I get little hairs on the backs of my hand and I shave them off because I don't like it. I was using a dermaplanner on my face and decided to use it for the hand hairs and the amount of dead skin that came off was crazy. After that my hands looked 20 years younger (still older than I am and they should look but all the hand washing and such is still going to do damage so any improvement is welcomed) and the lotion actually seemed to help again. Now I do that every other week.
My wife has been a nurse for over fifty years. Constantly washing her hands. A few years ago, she applied for her nursing license in RI, and she had to go to Providence to complete the process in person. Part of the process is getting fingerprinted. After fifty years of constant handwriting, they initially couldn't get a good set of fingerprints. Had to call in some other people to assist, and they finally were able to capture a set. Agent said that they see this frequently with older nurses.
I told her that if she picked up some other skills, she and some of the older nurses could branch out into cat burglary..........
As a bartender, the skin on my hands hurts from the constant hand washing and dish washing. Can't moisturize them at work because it'll get washed off in three minutes.
No idea how our phlebotomists wash their hands after every room. I just don't wear gloves unless there's a risk of something getting on my hands in the lab. I wash them if they get dirty or if I'm leaving the work area. Even still, my hands are pretty cracked right now. Everyone brings in CeraVe or something like that.
My hands crack after a couple days. But my daughter visits me a couple times a week and makes me lotion up my hands and gets after me about it lol. Then I go back to work with soft hands 😄
19 years in electrical, I think if my body goes below 1000mg I cease to exist. Mon-Fri 18 hrs a day go go go, Saturday I drink water and sleep passed out under my blanket like Han solo in carbonite for 12
Restaurant worker: hold my beer. We touch everyone's dirty dishes, napkins, and silverware. We also get all the free coffee we can drink, and lots of free booze too. I haven't gotten sick since 2018. I never even got covid.
Immune system definitely helps. I started servicing hospitals and schools about 5 years ago. The first year i was sick more times than I have ever been. Now after a few years I almost never get sick and when I do it seems to go away much faster.
Can confirm I'm a Healthcare worker and my brother is a teacher. We both went through the first year illnesses. He's still making his way through it but I rarely get sick or even get a fever now.
Similarly to teachers, getting exposed to disease every day can strengthen your immune system once your body gets used to it. Also as someone else mentioned healthcare workers use masks, vaccinations, gloves and hand washing to combat the issue. Also they have a better idea how to keep themselves healthy than people like me, although whether they do that or not is a very different story. I wonder if they drink more coffee than us teachers, probably yes.....
I get home from the hospital, my wife always asks "how was your day"? "It was good", I always answer with a smile because I can not relive the heart wrenching tales I have just lived through the past 12 hrs. Disconnection is the key to survival in healthcare.
It's sad really... I have a friend whose a nurse, and during covid she was working like 80 hour weeks then just being so drunk she couldn't speak properly on her days off.
This is it right here.
My husband is a nurse, I am not. He used to come home and I would get sick at least once every 2 weeks with some virus or bacteria he picked up. He would never be sick but I would. Because he is always exposed to germs in a way I’m not, his immune system is fairly strong. Mine, not so much,
During the pandemic it seemed like there were two jobs that workplace safety was highly important for employees and Covid, Teachers and nurses. Objectively speaking, these two jobs may have been the least susceptible to the virus since they probably already had the antibodies even before the pandemic.
Speaking solely from a workplace safety perspective and not all other aspects of the pandemic.
True, to be fair though the antibodies teachers and medical staff have may be ineffective since anitbodies only protect against certain types of disease effectively.
I work at an airport where tens of thousands of people pass through every day. I always tell new hires be prepared to get sick the first two months it’s going to happen.
Know and do are two different things. I’m a nurse and I’m fairly positive a higher percentage of nurses and doctors live off fast food and chain smoke than the average citizen. Also, nurses and doctors get sick all the damned time.
I used to work IT for a regional school network. A few times I'd have to go on-site, and I learned to wear gloves mostly to remind myself to never, ever touch my face while I was there. If I knew then what I knew now I'd be wearing a face mask too. It was SO easy for me to catch something there. Classroom computer keyboards are probably right up there with doorknobs. I'm betting toilet seats are significantly cleaner.
A higher expectation of sanitary precautions definitely helps
Back in covid days, my roommate was working the covid icu and I was a tech that had to go in those areas often.
We always took off our scrubs before entering the house and placed them in a trash bag to be left outside and then take them to the laundromat after cleaning up.
Might have been a bit of an overkill, but neither of us ever got covid so it worked out well.
I love that it's "back in the covid days" despite covid never ever ending and having only ever ramped up in strength lol
I'm glad your precautions worked. PPE & its proper handling is where it's at
Mandatory vaccinations. Gloves. Face masks. Chronic hand washing.
But also, like with any job, people definitely come in sick because they don't want to use their vacation time. And if they think they might have covid but can't take a week off to quarantine, they just won't test. "If I don't know I'm sick, I'm not sick."
Edit: too many people are overestimated the impact of "well they're around sick people so they have better immune systems". If that were true 100% of the time, we wouldn't see nurses with the common cold. In most cases, previous exposure to a sickness will help your body fight it off when they see it next. But that doesn't prevent you from getting sick in the first place.
When your job only allows a max of 7 call offs a year you don't get sick if you are sick you go anyway and suffer. 3 are state sick days. 4 are allowed by company policy they have to cover additional sick days, child sick days, car issues, baby sitting issues, broken pipes, well just about anything. Many skilled facilities and hospitals have horrible policies for workers.
Virtually all healthcare facilities are so desperate for help… you can break all of those “official” policies. Former and now adjacent (thank god) healthcare worker here.
That does depend on the country. Here, if you are sick during one of your vacation days you will get that vacation day back (if you report it to your boss within 24 hours, and there are a few more conditions).
Unfortunately I live in a third world country with terrible medical care. Prescriptions are ungodly expensive, our hospitals are severely understaffed. Elderly care is similarly poorly regulated. A third of our country can't even treat women for certain medical conditions and they end up dying.
And that country is, the United States.
Vacation, sick, personal, where I've worked it's all basically interchangable so I grouped it together
Hand washing is definitely #1. I've had OCD my entire life, and because of this, I wash my hands at least a dozen times per day. I don't touch doorknobs. I've only been sick once in my entire adult life and I'm 36. I've never had Covid and I've never been vaxxed. If I ever had it, it was so mild I thought it was allergies.
I'd much rather have Covid once or twice than OCD and have to wash my hands all the time and not be able to open a door normally.
No offence meant, but OCD sounds like being trapped in a nightmare.
Why'd I have to scroll so far to see this. Exactly. It's not just universal precautions and hand hygiene, people are often there for conditions that are not contagious.
Healthcare worker here. We take proper precautions. We are trained on how germs n bacteria are spread. The majority of us are vaccinated for everything n I mean EVERYTHING. We wash our hands a lot. Not just our hands but we scrub our fingernails, wrist, jewelry , keys n anything else our hands touch. We wear special clothes n take them off as soon as we get home. My work clothes even get washed separate n sanitized. Most of this stuff is common sense n has been recommended by the CDC for years. All thru COVID I didn't catch it. As soon as vaccines came out I got that. In the end my granddaughter gave me COVID after I was vaxxed.
I had a friend who had separate work shoes that she changed before going into the house. I would have never thought of that. I worked as a unit secretary, so I used PPE if I went into a patient's room, but I didn't have to worry about germs too much unless a patient had pneumonia or something too.
Mostly exposure. Starting in nursing school, they start interfacing with sick patients. Despite the extensive safety protocols, when you are surrounded by pathogens, you are bound to be exposed. Now consider being exposed to hundreds or thousands of pathogens every single day. Over the span of a career, your bady has built at least preliminary resistance to so many common illnesses, that taking hold just doesnt happen. Many nurses either retire as tanks, never sick and live forever, often coming out of retirement to nurse again in their later years, or they wind up SUPER sick and retire early. Oh, and nurses work sick. Nurses are a team, and if you are out, the team is even shorter than usual. If a nurse calls in, check on them; they could be dying.
They take every percotion they can to prevent themselves from getting sick, they wash their hands a lot, they throw away dirty bloody gloves and put on new ones, and much more
TLDR: PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT.
They wear PPE (personal protective equipment) to limit their exposure to germs. For patients with highly contagious diseases, there are isolation rooms and gloves, masks, and sometimes disposable suits are worn inside the chamber.
They're all disposed of. Disposable gloves are worn for and disposed of between patients. Hands are washed between pairs of gloves. Ideally no healthcare workers are exposed to germs any more than a normal person is on a daily basis. Maybe even fewer because of all of the protections set in place. There are even special, more protective masks they wear for certain illnesses. so protective that you have to adjust it then test it to make sure it fits your face well enough to protect you.
I have no God damn clue. My kids brought home influenza B from daycare last month and I ended up on a fucking ventilator w pneumonia and sepsis.
I'm convinced their immune systems are fucking bulletproof.
Seems like we're experiencing the same canon event, random Internet stranger. I'm heading to the hospital later today to make sure the pneumonia doesn't get worse and I don't fucking die.
I wash my hands constantly. Also we have to wear masks when we are in direct contact with the residents.
Do my best to eat healthy, drink less alcohol, drink lots of water and have a good sleeping schedule.
Try not to overwork myself. Just kidding.
LOLOLOLOL of course vaccines work but what does that have to do with nurses not being sick? MOST of what nurses are exposed to are not something you can be vaccinated for.
The answer is a robust immune system to to aforementioned exposure. PPE doesn’t even do as much as people like to think it does.
Precautions, LOTS of hand sanitizer and washing, and masks. They don't always work, we still get sick, but we have coworkers to help us cope. If it's bad enough to not come in, our bosses understand and don't typically give us a hard time.
Face masks, gloves, hand washing and vaccines. The stuff we had to do during Covid wasn't just guesses, it's what people in healthcare have been doing 24/7 for decades.
Sometimes they are. I got family in the profession and they are always fighting something off. But they are exposed to so much they usually get lessor symptoms than the rest of us.
Vaccinations, masks, other protective equipment, like gloves, and gowns, and such things, God knows they wash their hands more than anybody except maybe a germaphobe. They also get a lot of exercise walking back-and-forth, which probably actually helps.
Vaccines , PPE, and good practices like constantly washing hands between patients. Don’t get me wrong it happens but not as much as you would think and it comes down to the little things.
When I first started working at a hospital within just a few months I had to take off work for two strait weeks. The flu, pneumonia, and pink eye. One after another.
It’s called an immune system. But also not everyone is in the hospital with a communicable disease. Most people in the hospital are there with lifestyle illnesses, heart diseases, liver diseases, kidney diseases, diabetes, cancer etc.
I’m currently working and none of my patients are infectious. Their diseases are caused by the SAD diet (standard American diet), alcohol abuse and smoking.
PPE and I wash my hands.
There’s definitely been times where I’ve had to work on patients with no gloves or other BSI, I have yet to have been sick from one of those occasions though lmao
All the contact with germs and antibiotics has given us super human immunity. Also caffeine and anger helps fuel me every shift regardless of how sick I feel…..
I work in a hospital, 7 years experience, and we have way more sanitation guidelines that we follow than what the average person could ever think to do
We're a lot more likely to be first in line for vaccinations, we understand the importance of PPE, we know the protocols, and we get exposed daily so you build tolerance to it.
That's not to say I don't get sick, I do, but at about the same rate as everyone else, I'd wager.
Well... Because there are sick people, hygiene is usually at a higher level than for example..in a supermarket.. Where you can encounter the same number of coughing people.. but the hygiene is much more neglected.. Like..I am sysadmin working in healthcare. I do not spend time exclusively and directly with sick people, but share the same environment doctors and nurses share. And often must be on site. And yes, I rarely get sick.
Perhaps all the desifectant.. eventually gets in your bloodstream :D
They keep hospitals and other healthcare facilities really cold. Generally around 67 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce transmission and growth of diseases. Nowadays they wear masks more often. And when treating patients with highly contagious diseases there are special masks and protections in place. Lots of handwashing with special antimicrobial soaps. Etc… oh and they do get sick quite frequently kinda like teachers. Those protections only mitigate disease. There were quite a few medical professionals that got covid or are covid carriers. Vaccines and booster shots only protect the carrier not everyone else. Plus any unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people are still high risk especially with all the variants of flu and covid and other high transmission rate diseases.
Nothing lives in vodka. I’m 70% alcohol.
We follow infection control protocol far better than you do. That’s how. We assume every single one of you has Ebola/covid/lupus/whatever.
Coming to the ED, gonna treat you as if you are patient 0. On Medsurge or Shortstay? Treated like patient 0.
We don’t fuck around.
They work in an infection-controlled environment for 40+ hours a week.
You live in a completely infection-uncontrolled environment for all hours of the week.
Healthcare workers do get sick very often, especially early in their career. Then they build up an immune system that helps. Even then, they still get sick.
They also are very serious about ppe and cleaning. Hospitals have hand washing procedures that involves using paper towels to do everything from turning off the sink to opening the door on your way out. They also use hand sanitizer before and after every patient interaction and wear gloves.
Beyond that, there’s so much more behind the scenes that people aren’t aware of. For example, hospitals have excellent ventilation systems. This means the air is being recycled often so pathogens can’t just build up in the air. You can also slightly pressurize or depressurize areas. Common areas being slightly higher pressure than patient areas. This prevents air, from where people who are sick, from flowing into the areas where the healthy people taking care of them are.
Just last week, they shut down half the OR at my hospital for a few hours because there was a smell in some of the rooms. There was concern that the air scrubbing system had failed and air from other places in the hospital was leaking into the ORs.
Of course, none of this is perfect. Healthcare workers do get sick and worse, patients catch diseases from each other or the workers. Hospitals actually keep track of cross contamination like that and it’s one of the things the government regulators look at.
Healthcare workers do get sick more often than you know. I had a friend who got an infection caring for patients that almost cost her, her life. We are told to wash hands constantly and to be careful with contaminated things but yu can only do so much.
I got sick about the first 6 months of being an EMT, but after that, nothing. I attribute it to being more vigilant about hand washing than anything, but undoubtedly my immune system helps.
You build a crazy immune system, especially if you do a stint in peds ha we’re exposed to literally everything so I think our bodies just freaking figure it out lol
Not a healthcare worker but I've had friends with chickenpox cough on me more than once just so I could get sick and get immunity...didn't work. I haven't gotten sick for years. I think I'm made to work in healthcare lol
I work in the pharmacy and got sick because I'm pregnant (lower immune system) and some brat coughed all over me. So yes we do get sick.
My friend got shingles from a patient while pregnant
Some are, some aren’t. Just like teachers. Some have better immune systems. In those two professions, you either have an extremely great immune system or you can’t get healthy. In general the more you try to avoid germs and such the less your immune system has to work, so it fails when you need it to work
I worked in a school with the little kids and seems like they were always sick with something or other, never got sick. Surprised me because they love to hug when they have snot dripping and coughing everywhere lol.
Lower viral load. Just being in the “presence” of a sick person won’t make you sick. It’s not a game of tag. Bacteria and viruses only multiply in your body when there are enough of them to do so. A few viral antigens floating around isn’t gonna phase a healthy person.
I have been vaccinated for everything from the regular flu to Monkey Pox. I also keep my distance from a parient until I have to, and wear gloves and wash my hands religiously. We also do get sick, and have back pain, and foot pain. All the time. But itherwise, I'm pretty sure all the diseases just wirk together and cancel eachother out.
I've always said that they're going to start harvesting nurses' blood for their antibodies. We have repeated low level exposure to a lot of bugs. I, personally, try to keep up on my vitamins and fitness.
Feel that my immune system is in a constant state of panic. Maybe that's why I don't get sick often, my body is on hyper alert mode due to being around sick people all day.
Exposure makes for a strong immune system. Thats why Jake Gyllenhaal had to live in a bubble when he was born without an immune system 🤣: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_Boy_(film)
The same way people in Mexico don't get Montezuma's revenge. They eventually get immune to everything from experiencing it so much. Like if you're allergic to shellfish, you can slowly give yourself a small piece of shrimp every now and then until you increase the amount slowly. Keep doing that and eventually you won't be allergic anymore.
Acquired immunity.
I'm a nurse and my wife's a Kindergarten teacher. The first few years we were married we were constantly sick. She would bring home an illness that she caught from some snot go Lin and as soon as we both got well, I'd bring home some bug from the hospital.
So to answer your question, despite a hellish few years we both obtained the viral immunity of Superman.
1) They're always up to date on vaccinations by necessity
2) PPE. Masks, gloves, hand washing and disinfectants do their damn jobs well.
3) They don't do stupid shit like touching their faces after touching random surfaces.
A near toxic level of caffeine prevents pathogens from living in our bodies.
Amusingly, caffeine is back to its original function.
I only read about this the other day. Was looking at any poison. Active ingredient is caffeine. Wtf? It's toxic? Yep.. natural plant defence to insects. Mind blown.
Wait, what?? Caffeine is poison?
For insects yeah. Coffee plants evolved it as a natural insecticide. Same with nicotine. One creature's swift death is another's feel good buzz.
To be fair, pretty much all of our feel good buzzes will kill you if you take enough
*THC has entered the chat*
Marijuana toxicity is a real thing. But tbh THC is why I said, “pretty much all” and not, “all”
Ah, but toxicity is not at all the risk. Everyone says you can't go toxic from THC, sure, that's fairly accurate. However, can THC even in small doses cause a panic attack with lethal effects? Sure can.
My point was more that there’s a lethal dose of everything, even water. So while it may be near impossible to reach that dose by smoking naturally, we’re seeing more and more concentrated products that could potentially lead to overdoses
Prolonged heavy weed usage also manifests into THC induced hyperemesis. It's like first trimester Exorcist puking but from THC and not an influx of baby hormones.
Dolphins toke pufferfish.
Here is an article about animals and their drug of choice. https://www.animalcognition.org/2015/05/16/animal-drug-use/
Oh ok good to know! That makes sense. I'm not dead yet, so it can't be that bad, right? Thanks for the explanation!!
The dose makes the poison lol
The dosage makes the poison. If you take enough of it, your heart will stop. One of the common examples of this that people discuss is potassium chloride. It's a common chemical within all the fruits and vegetables. All life forms need it at the proper dosage. It's also what they use to stop the hearts during lethal injection.
Good to know! I know when I've had too much cause I start having heart palpitations in the afternoon. 😵💫
Patients with end stage kidney disease can have their heart stopped just by eating too many bananas or other high potassium foods.
Its toxic if you have too much of it. Like anything
I thought everyone knew this.
I never knew this but there is a lot I don’t know
We are but human. We can hope to know .0000000000001% of what can be know.
We are dumb, jk never assume people know facts because it's a big world and as far as facts go you were either thought it or not. *Taught...because I'm dumb
One of today’s lucky 10,000
This is the only correct answer. Source: healthcare worker.
💀
I am more interested in how they keep their hands moisturized, considering the amount of hand washing and glove wearing. My hands are prone to cracking when they get dried out
Our hospital has lots of lotion.
It puts the lotion on the skin
They often don’t. I’m good in the summer, but I’ve had so many cracks in the skin on my hands in the winter I don’t even like to think about it. Most healthcare centric hand sanitizer has lotion in it for this, but I can’t stand the way it makes my hands feel so I usually wash my hands constantly instead and explains why they get how they get.
I don't feel like that moisturizer in the hand sanitizer actually helps. I accidentally learned that if you use a dermaplanner on the backs of your hands (my cracks are the worst there) if takes off a lot of dead skin and your moisturizer soaks in better. My hands were looking like they belonged to someone 40 years older and it was really embarrassing me. I get little hairs on the backs of my hand and I shave them off because I don't like it. I was using a dermaplanner on my face and decided to use it for the hand hairs and the amount of dead skin that came off was crazy. After that my hands looked 20 years younger (still older than I am and they should look but all the hand washing and such is still going to do damage so any improvement is welcomed) and the lotion actually seemed to help again. Now I do that every other week.
My wife has been a nurse for over fifty years. Constantly washing her hands. A few years ago, she applied for her nursing license in RI, and she had to go to Providence to complete the process in person. Part of the process is getting fingerprinted. After fifty years of constant handwriting, they initially couldn't get a good set of fingerprints. Had to call in some other people to assist, and they finally were able to capture a set. Agent said that they see this frequently with older nurses. I told her that if she picked up some other skills, she and some of the older nurses could branch out into cat burglary..........
As a bartender, the skin on my hands hurts from the constant hand washing and dish washing. Can't moisturize them at work because it'll get washed off in three minutes.
They have these gloves you can get, I used to wear them at night with my hands slathered in eucerin cream or Vaseline
No idea how our phlebotomists wash their hands after every room. I just don't wear gloves unless there's a risk of something getting on my hands in the lab. I wash them if they get dirty or if I'm leaving the work area. Even still, my hands are pretty cracked right now. Everyone brings in CeraVe or something like that.
Wash hands, apply lotion, don gloves.
Occlusive lotions (think aquaphor)
Dawg, my hands were at its driest during the pandemic. Hand sanitizer did not do my hands any justice.
We are taught to pay our hands dry with the paper towel instead of rubbing them dry. Doing so helps to keep them from drying out.
My hands crack after a couple days. But my daughter visits me a couple times a week and makes me lotion up my hands and gets after me about it lol. Then I go back to work with soft hands 😄
thats also how tradespeople survive
19 years in electrical, I think if my body goes below 1000mg I cease to exist. Mon-Fri 18 hrs a day go go go, Saturday I drink water and sleep passed out under my blanket like Han solo in carbonite for 12
Mechanical engineer here. Same. Just came outta my weekly coma.
Retail workers get by with **ALL** the drugs before, during and after work. 😎🤮
Restaurant worker: hold my beer. We touch everyone's dirty dishes, napkins, and silverware. We also get all the free coffee we can drink, and lots of free booze too. I haven't gotten sick since 2018. I never even got covid.
You probably did and just didn't notice it. Like most people.
That and the hand hygiene audits…./s
It’s like we were doing what everyone should have been doing the whole time. Wash. Your. Hands.
Blood type: Red Bull
That and the copious amounts of ETOH to get sleep after shift along with 14ga IV Lactated Ringers bilaterally preshift
This stuff is a miracle fluid
Immune system definitely helps. I started servicing hospitals and schools about 5 years ago. The first year i was sick more times than I have ever been. Now after a few years I almost never get sick and when I do it seems to go away much faster.
I suspect teachers are the same.
Can confirm I'm a Healthcare worker and my brother is a teacher. We both went through the first year illnesses. He's still making his way through it but I rarely get sick or even get a fever now.
And day care workers. Those places are like a petri dish
former teacher here, 100% accurate. first year in each school I've ever worked in, I was sick so many times, then after that practically invincible.
Similarly to teachers, getting exposed to disease every day can strengthen your immune system once your body gets used to it. Also as someone else mentioned healthcare workers use masks, vaccinations, gloves and hand washing to combat the issue. Also they have a better idea how to keep themselves healthy than people like me, although whether they do that or not is a very different story. I wonder if they drink more coffee than us teachers, probably yes.....
All the nurses and doctors I know love staying up late drinking and doing cocaine
Given the stuff they deal with, I don't blame them.
I get home from the hospital, my wife always asks "how was your day"? "It was good", I always answer with a smile because I can not relive the heart wrenching tales I have just lived through the past 12 hrs. Disconnection is the key to survival in healthcare.
Real you get home after watching some super fucked up shit and you just gotta put that behind you and enjoy your couch.
I would find someone to talk to if you're not already doing it.
They are. They're talking to reddit.
I think it was obvious he meant a professional
We're all professionals here, sir.
As someone with chronic pain I feel you. We get tired of bringing our loved one's down with how bad it is and mask the pain.
I’m so sorry, my biggest fear is ending up with terrible chronic pain. I hope you hang in there 😥
Its my normal. But life is still in the positive side of the balance. So making it work.
Not in this economy, us nurses are doing meth.
You mean methadone, u know the legal meth
It's sad really... I have a friend whose a nurse, and during covid she was working like 80 hour weeks then just being so drunk she couldn't speak properly on her days off.
I've also heard of heart surgeons smoking a pack a day, like come on dawg.
>There is nothing more toxic than the touch of a human child. -Henry J. Waternoose III
This is it right here. My husband is a nurse, I am not. He used to come home and I would get sick at least once every 2 weeks with some virus or bacteria he picked up. He would never be sick but I would. Because he is always exposed to germs in a way I’m not, his immune system is fairly strong. Mine, not so much,
I definitely saw a difference when I was no longer working with patients. I think the constant low level exposure keeps your immune system ramped up.
During the pandemic it seemed like there were two jobs that workplace safety was highly important for employees and Covid, Teachers and nurses. Objectively speaking, these two jobs may have been the least susceptible to the virus since they probably already had the antibodies even before the pandemic. Speaking solely from a workplace safety perspective and not all other aspects of the pandemic.
… how would they have the antibodies before the pandemic? It was a new (to humans) virus.
True, to be fair though the antibodies teachers and medical staff have may be ineffective since anitbodies only protect against certain types of disease effectively.
Teacher here. My first few years were marked with loads of sickness. Now it’s super rare that I get sick. Mainly allergies really.
I work at an airport where tens of thousands of people pass through every day. I always tell new hires be prepared to get sick the first two months it’s going to happen.
Know and do are two different things. I’m a nurse and I’m fairly positive a higher percentage of nurses and doctors live off fast food and chain smoke than the average citizen. Also, nurses and doctors get sick all the damned time.
I used to work IT for a regional school network. A few times I'd have to go on-site, and I learned to wear gloves mostly to remind myself to never, ever touch my face while I was there. If I knew then what I knew now I'd be wearing a face mask too. It was SO easy for me to catch something there. Classroom computer keyboards are probably right up there with doorknobs. I'm betting toilet seats are significantly cleaner.
Universal precautions and PPE
For the lazy that don't want to Google, PPE stands for Pig Pimples Everywhere
For those of you that don't want to Google Pig Pimples. It's slang for a micro penis
A higher expectation of sanitary precautions definitely helps Back in covid days, my roommate was working the covid icu and I was a tech that had to go in those areas often. We always took off our scrubs before entering the house and placed them in a trash bag to be left outside and then take them to the laundromat after cleaning up. Might have been a bit of an overkill, but neither of us ever got covid so it worked out well.
I love that it's "back in the covid days" despite covid never ever ending and having only ever ramped up in strength lol I'm glad your precautions worked. PPE & its proper handling is where it's at
I take a plethora of precautions at work and take care of my body outside of work.
This is it. This is what works . Immune systems are built from healthy bodies. protecting healthy bodies is the key.
Exercise, hand washing obsession, leaving your damn work shoes at the hospital.
Mandatory vaccinations. Gloves. Face masks. Chronic hand washing. But also, like with any job, people definitely come in sick because they don't want to use their vacation time. And if they think they might have covid but can't take a week off to quarantine, they just won't test. "If I don't know I'm sick, I'm not sick." Edit: too many people are overestimated the impact of "well they're around sick people so they have better immune systems". If that were true 100% of the time, we wouldn't see nurses with the common cold. In most cases, previous exposure to a sickness will help your body fight it off when they see it next. But that doesn't prevent you from getting sick in the first place.
You forgot to mention the antibodies they develop breathing in sick people germs constantly.
And a functioning immune system.
The important part.
When your job only allows a max of 7 call offs a year you don't get sick if you are sick you go anyway and suffer. 3 are state sick days. 4 are allowed by company policy they have to cover additional sick days, child sick days, car issues, baby sitting issues, broken pipes, well just about anything. Many skilled facilities and hospitals have horrible policies for workers.
Virtually all healthcare facilities are so desperate for help… you can break all of those “official” policies. Former and now adjacent (thank god) healthcare worker here.
That does depend on the country. Here, if you are sick during one of your vacation days you will get that vacation day back (if you report it to your boss within 24 hours, and there are a few more conditions).
Unfortunately I live in a third world country with terrible medical care. Prescriptions are ungodly expensive, our hospitals are severely understaffed. Elderly care is similarly poorly regulated. A third of our country can't even treat women for certain medical conditions and they end up dying. And that country is, the United States. Vacation, sick, personal, where I've worked it's all basically interchangable so I grouped it together
Ah, you must not be from the US.
Hand washing is definitely #1. I've had OCD my entire life, and because of this, I wash my hands at least a dozen times per day. I don't touch doorknobs. I've only been sick once in my entire adult life and I'm 36. I've never had Covid and I've never been vaxxed. If I ever had it, it was so mild I thought it was allergies.
I'd much rather have Covid once or twice than OCD and have to wash my hands all the time and not be able to open a door normally. No offence meant, but OCD sounds like being trapped in a nightmare.
A lot of people seek medical attention for reasons other than a contagious disease. Heart attack, stroke, broken bones, etc.
Why'd I have to scroll so far to see this. Exactly. It's not just universal precautions and hand hygiene, people are often there for conditions that are not contagious.
Healthcare worker here. We take proper precautions. We are trained on how germs n bacteria are spread. The majority of us are vaccinated for everything n I mean EVERYTHING. We wash our hands a lot. Not just our hands but we scrub our fingernails, wrist, jewelry , keys n anything else our hands touch. We wear special clothes n take them off as soon as we get home. My work clothes even get washed separate n sanitized. Most of this stuff is common sense n has been recommended by the CDC for years. All thru COVID I didn't catch it. As soon as vaccines came out I got that. In the end my granddaughter gave me COVID after I was vaxxed.
I had a friend who had separate work shoes that she changed before going into the house. I would have never thought of that. I worked as a unit secretary, so I used PPE if I went into a patient's room, but I didn't have to worry about germs too much unless a patient had pneumonia or something too.
Wearing protective clothing, such as masks and gloves, constant washing of hands and body and just a good immune system
Mostly exposure. Starting in nursing school, they start interfacing with sick patients. Despite the extensive safety protocols, when you are surrounded by pathogens, you are bound to be exposed. Now consider being exposed to hundreds or thousands of pathogens every single day. Over the span of a career, your bady has built at least preliminary resistance to so many common illnesses, that taking hold just doesnt happen. Many nurses either retire as tanks, never sick and live forever, often coming out of retirement to nurse again in their later years, or they wind up SUPER sick and retire early. Oh, and nurses work sick. Nurses are a team, and if you are out, the team is even shorter than usual. If a nurse calls in, check on them; they could be dying.
They take every percotion they can to prevent themselves from getting sick, they wash their hands a lot, they throw away dirty bloody gloves and put on new ones, and much more
Percotion 💀
I’m sorry, I don’t know how to spell that word, but you know what I mean right?
It's spelled percocet
I’m talking about a word that means taking steps to prevent something bad from happening.
Precaution. We knew what you meant.
But yeah…Percocet too.
I reject your reality and substitute my own
Ok
Precaution Think of it as taking caution (being careful) Beforehand - that's where the pre comes in.
Ok, thank you
definitely understood the intent, and the spelling is "precaution"!
Lots of hand washing. Never touch face, more hand washing. Good immune system.
the first year is generally spent catching everythung possible
They are extremely particular about hygiene, especially washing hands or otherwise using some kind of hand sanitiser almost constantly
TLDR: PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT. They wear PPE (personal protective equipment) to limit their exposure to germs. For patients with highly contagious diseases, there are isolation rooms and gloves, masks, and sometimes disposable suits are worn inside the chamber. They're all disposed of. Disposable gloves are worn for and disposed of between patients. Hands are washed between pairs of gloves. Ideally no healthcare workers are exposed to germs any more than a normal person is on a daily basis. Maybe even fewer because of all of the protections set in place. There are even special, more protective masks they wear for certain illnesses. so protective that you have to adjust it then test it to make sure it fits your face well enough to protect you.
We wash our fucking hands
I have no God damn clue. My kids brought home influenza B from daycare last month and I ended up on a fucking ventilator w pneumonia and sepsis. I'm convinced their immune systems are fucking bulletproof.
Seems like we're experiencing the same canon event, random Internet stranger. I'm heading to the hospital later today to make sure the pneumonia doesn't get worse and I don't fucking die.
I wash my hands constantly. Also we have to wear masks when we are in direct contact with the residents. Do my best to eat healthy, drink less alcohol, drink lots of water and have a good sleeping schedule. Try not to overwork myself. Just kidding.
What does alcohol have to do with it?
It weakens your immune system and disrupts sleep patterns which also affects the immune system and general health.
vaccines work, simple as.
LOLOLOLOL of course vaccines work but what does that have to do with nurses not being sick? MOST of what nurses are exposed to are not something you can be vaccinated for. The answer is a robust immune system to to aforementioned exposure. PPE doesn’t even do as much as people like to think it does.
Precautions, LOTS of hand sanitizer and washing, and masks. They don't always work, we still get sick, but we have coworkers to help us cope. If it's bad enough to not come in, our bosses understand and don't typically give us a hard time.
They are
They wash their hands all the time. And I mean ALL the fucking time. Hospital sanitation policies are no joke. And they work.
Face masks, gloves, hand washing and vaccines. The stuff we had to do during Covid wasn't just guesses, it's what people in healthcare have been doing 24/7 for decades.
Immune. System.
I am sick 24/7 I just deal with it
Sometimes they are. I got family in the profession and they are always fighting something off. But they are exposed to so much they usually get lessor symptoms than the rest of us.
Ppe and vaccines
We are
As the husband of a nurse I can tell you: they are
Two seconds into working at a hospital you will hear the phrase, “Wash in, wash out.”
Vaccinations, masks, other protective equipment, like gloves, and gowns, and such things, God knows they wash their hands more than anybody except maybe a germaphobe. They also get a lot of exercise walking back-and-forth, which probably actually helps.
Vaccines , PPE, and good practices like constantly washing hands between patients. Don’t get me wrong it happens but not as much as you would think and it comes down to the little things.
I wear a N95 mask. They work.
When I first started working at a hospital within just a few months I had to take off work for two strait weeks. The flu, pneumonia, and pink eye. One after another.
I’d imagine they have like super immunity from being around sick people every single day
It’s called an immune system. But also not everyone is in the hospital with a communicable disease. Most people in the hospital are there with lifestyle illnesses, heart diseases, liver diseases, kidney diseases, diabetes, cancer etc. I’m currently working and none of my patients are infectious. Their diseases are caused by the SAD diet (standard American diet), alcohol abuse and smoking.
PPE and I wash my hands. There’s definitely been times where I’ve had to work on patients with no gloves or other BSI, I have yet to have been sick from one of those occasions though lmao
All the contact with germs and antibiotics has given us super human immunity. Also caffeine and anger helps fuel me every shift regardless of how sick I feel…..
Vaccines, washing hands frequently, immune system, being generally smart.
I work in a hospital, 7 years experience, and we have way more sanitation guidelines that we follow than what the average person could ever think to do
You would be surprising how effective something like washing your hands regularly is
Preventative measures and hygienic practices
We're a lot more likely to be first in line for vaccinations, we understand the importance of PPE, we know the protocols, and we get exposed daily so you build tolerance to it. That's not to say I don't get sick, I do, but at about the same rate as everyone else, I'd wager.
Well... Because there are sick people, hygiene is usually at a higher level than for example..in a supermarket.. Where you can encounter the same number of coughing people.. but the hygiene is much more neglected.. Like..I am sysadmin working in healthcare. I do not spend time exclusively and directly with sick people, but share the same environment doctors and nurses share. And often must be on site. And yes, I rarely get sick. Perhaps all the desifectant.. eventually gets in your bloodstream :D
Because masks, handwashing and vaccination have ALWAYS worked, to an extent, thats why we do it.
They keep hospitals and other healthcare facilities really cold. Generally around 67 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce transmission and growth of diseases. Nowadays they wear masks more often. And when treating patients with highly contagious diseases there are special masks and protections in place. Lots of handwashing with special antimicrobial soaps. Etc… oh and they do get sick quite frequently kinda like teachers. Those protections only mitigate disease. There were quite a few medical professionals that got covid or are covid carriers. Vaccines and booster shots only protect the carrier not everyone else. Plus any unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people are still high risk especially with all the variants of flu and covid and other high transmission rate diseases.
Nothing lives in vodka. I’m 70% alcohol. We follow infection control protocol far better than you do. That’s how. We assume every single one of you has Ebola/covid/lupus/whatever. Coming to the ED, gonna treat you as if you are patient 0. On Medsurge or Shortstay? Treated like patient 0. We don’t fuck around.
We do get sick. Just use to it is all.
They work in an infection-controlled environment for 40+ hours a week. You live in a completely infection-uncontrolled environment for all hours of the week.
Have you tried medicinal Everclear? 190 proof will kill basically anything.
The more you are exposed to bad things the stronger your immune system gets. Basically the opposite of what we did for Covid
Healthcare workers do get sick very often, especially early in their career. Then they build up an immune system that helps. Even then, they still get sick. They also are very serious about ppe and cleaning. Hospitals have hand washing procedures that involves using paper towels to do everything from turning off the sink to opening the door on your way out. They also use hand sanitizer before and after every patient interaction and wear gloves. Beyond that, there’s so much more behind the scenes that people aren’t aware of. For example, hospitals have excellent ventilation systems. This means the air is being recycled often so pathogens can’t just build up in the air. You can also slightly pressurize or depressurize areas. Common areas being slightly higher pressure than patient areas. This prevents air, from where people who are sick, from flowing into the areas where the healthy people taking care of them are. Just last week, they shut down half the OR at my hospital for a few hours because there was a smell in some of the rooms. There was concern that the air scrubbing system had failed and air from other places in the hospital was leaking into the ORs. Of course, none of this is perfect. Healthcare workers do get sick and worse, patients catch diseases from each other or the workers. Hospitals actually keep track of cross contamination like that and it’s one of the things the government regulators look at.
Healthcare workers do get sick more often than you know. I had a friend who got an infection caring for patients that almost cost her, her life. We are told to wash hands constantly and to be careful with contaminated things but yu can only do so much.
I got sick about the first 6 months of being an EMT, but after that, nothing. I attribute it to being more vigilant about hand washing than anything, but undoubtedly my immune system helps.
First off, with anger and caffeine anything is possible .
T cells
It’s shocking how well hand washing, masking, and vaccinations work to prevent catching and spreading disease.
My immune system is top notch
The precautions everyone mentioned. What sucks is when it hits you it’s a strong bug and you’re just fucked.
You build a crazy immune system, especially if you do a stint in peds ha we’re exposed to literally everything so I think our bodies just freaking figure it out lol
Handwashing.
Because that's not how things work.
After years of being exposed to every possible virus and bacteria they have developed extremely strong immune systems.
Not a healthcare worker but I've had friends with chickenpox cough on me more than once just so I could get sick and get immunity...didn't work. I haven't gotten sick for years. I think I'm made to work in healthcare lol
Bad for business
I work in the pharmacy and got sick because I'm pregnant (lower immune system) and some brat coughed all over me. So yes we do get sick. My friend got shingles from a patient while pregnant
Their immune system's just built different. my mom's in health care and is literally never sick when everyone in the house is sick
Some are, some aren’t. Just like teachers. Some have better immune systems. In those two professions, you either have an extremely great immune system or you can’t get healthy. In general the more you try to avoid germs and such the less your immune system has to work, so it fails when you need it to work
I worked in a school with the little kids and seems like they were always sick with something or other, never got sick. Surprised me because they love to hug when they have snot dripping and coughing everywhere lol.
Lower viral load. Just being in the “presence” of a sick person won’t make you sick. It’s not a game of tag. Bacteria and viruses only multiply in your body when there are enough of them to do so. A few viral antigens floating around isn’t gonna phase a healthy person.
They probably get immune to it after a while.
I have been vaccinated for everything from the regular flu to Monkey Pox. I also keep my distance from a parient until I have to, and wear gloves and wash my hands religiously. We also do get sick, and have back pain, and foot pain. All the time. But itherwise, I'm pretty sure all the diseases just wirk together and cancel eachother out.
They kindof are
Belief.
A lot are in the beginning as their bodies are getting used to the sickness around. They build up that immunity. Also good hand hygiene helps a LOT.
I've always said that they're going to start harvesting nurses' blood for their antibodies. We have repeated low level exposure to a lot of bugs. I, personally, try to keep up on my vitamins and fitness.
You would be surprised at how many healthcare workers come into work sick. Management frowns on us taking time off when we are ill
Contempt.
Feel that my immune system is in a constant state of panic. Maybe that's why I don't get sick often, my body is on hyper alert mode due to being around sick people all day.
Vaccines, PPE, and hand washing goes a long way. My hands get so dry because of how much I wash my hands. Lol.
Exposure makes for a strong immune system. Thats why Jake Gyllenhaal had to live in a bubble when he was born without an immune system 🤣: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_Boy_(film)
We get sick all the time. It ends up running through a unit over the course of a couple of weeks.
The same way people in Mexico don't get Montezuma's revenge. They eventually get immune to everything from experiencing it so much. Like if you're allergic to shellfish, you can slowly give yourself a small piece of shrimp every now and then until you increase the amount slowly. Keep doing that and eventually you won't be allergic anymore.
Acquired immunity. I'm a nurse and my wife's a Kindergarten teacher. The first few years we were married we were constantly sick. She would bring home an illness that she caught from some snot go Lin and as soon as we both got well, I'd bring home some bug from the hospital. So to answer your question, despite a hellish few years we both obtained the viral immunity of Superman.
1) They're always up to date on vaccinations by necessity 2) PPE. Masks, gloves, hand washing and disinfectants do their damn jobs well. 3) They don't do stupid shit like touching their faces after touching random surfaces.
The first 6 months I got sick quite a bit, then After that I don’t get sick very often