Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Saturday, March 10th, 2012
Hand hygiene, hand hygiene, hand hygiene. A couple words that are drilled into our heads in nursing school and everyday at work. It means hand washing and using hand sanitiser and sometimes a combination of both. Of course hand hygiene has a side effect that many of us are very familiar with. Dry, red itching hands very often covered with eczema. Keeping our hands well hydrated is also an important part of hand hygiene as dry cracked hands are a great way to transfer bacteria and things from one place (or person) to another.
Today I decided that I needed to be more aggressive in treating my dry hands (that was made obvious by the fact that I was woken up just after midnight last night but the action of myself dragging my nails over my dry itchy hands). Naturally I headed to the pharmacy to see what they could recommend.
I was explaining to one of the assistants what I was looking for and he pointed out a cream that I have already been using but didn't seem to be helping. He then directed me to the pharmacist to explain my issue. I told him my problem is that I wash my hands a lot and that causes the excessive drying. He suggests "just don't wash you hands". I explained that I was a nurse and had to wash my hands and he says "can't you wear gloves?" I explained I do wear gloves but I still need to wash my hands. His next suggestion "just don't use soap or just leave your hands dirty". That's when I bought some glycerol cream and left. I knew I was in the wrong place to be getting good hand hygiene information.
Note to self.....always have pocket sized hand sanitizer in my purse and use it often because apparently washing hands (except at prayer time) is not recommended.
Julie
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