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Washing a cut with water


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Even when those hygienic procedures have a high cost/resource utilization and has been shown to have no benefit (and sometimes are more harmful)?

I don't purchase the antibacterial stuff. Vigourous hand washing with soap is more effective as those high priced soaps. Of course that depends on who you ask and whether you ask my wife. She'll tell you "every little bit helps"

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I think washing your hands correctly is more important than the particulars you use to wash them. Simply letting cold water hit your hands for three seconds before drying them doesn't cut it (this is what I see every lay person do in bathrooms, and it's disgusting). I stand there scrubbing for twenty seconds or so while three or four people use the sink next to me.

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I have yet to suffer ill effect from just splashing some iodine on whatever is torn open. Our water isn't treated, it's ground water, it gets filtered - I assume, by that white tube ish thing on the pressure tank. I'm sure the mine acid kills anything living in the water, ha ha. But I do use a lot of iodine. We had terrible flooding a few months ago, they had laid a "loop" of water line for the sole purpose of increasing pressure while the fire pumps were on. This went under a creek, through an old lake bed. The lake bed consisted of several hundred thousand feet of silt. That now sat in the town, flood waters deeper than ever, silt knee deep. With stuff in it...like glass. Ouch. I washed a deep lac w/ what I'm pretty sure was muscle or fat showing, w/ town water, which was just dribbling out - w/ the fire pumps on. There was a fire threat, the pumps were turned on, and water shot out of the woods, not the fire hydrants. Doused it w/ iodine after I was told the water was contaminated, and shut off, never had any problems. But I've seen most first aid booklets tell laypersons to wash "cuts" with soap and water.

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Even when those hygienic procedures have a high cost/resource utilization and has been shown to have no benefit (and sometimes are more harmful)?

I talked about washing my hands and taking a shower. It costs not much and sure has some benefits at least in social life. :)

To be serious: taking hygienic precautions is proved to work. If for medical personnel (disinfecting hands before/after patient contact) as well as for patients (wound cleaning).

And talking about general hygienic procedures: clean water, sewerage management, sanitation requirements for food products etc. is a clear step forward from medieval plagues - in countries with no possibilities for such basics the risk of dying from infections still is much higher (see cholera spread in Haiti). I think, I don't have to tell you more. Would be interesting if you want to argue this.

And yes I'm aware that hygienic procedures could be harmful if done wrong, under- or overdosed. But that's something with almost all things in life...

To close the circle to the original posting: the hand cut may not get infected even if not treated because the original poster lives in a time and a country, where regular hygienic precautions already cover the most of the risks catching an infection in the first place and even if, due to high standards his health state is probably good enough to deal with the remaining infection risks. Some other place, some other time and he would have a much higher probability to die from even a small hand cut...

If the extreme chlorination (sp?) of drinking water is more part of a problem instead of a solution I personally can't decide from here - they don't use chlorine or anything here in my home town, having an almost sterile natural water source from the alps. They have a very close watch (hygienic precautions, again!') on it, though.

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I talked about washing my hands and taking a shower. It costs not much and sure has some benefits at least in social life. :)

To be serious: taking hygienic precautions is proved to work. If for medical personnel (disinfecting hands before/after patient contact) as well as for patients (wound cleaning).

And talking about general hygienic procedures: clean water, sewerage management, sanitation requirements for food products etc. is a clear step forward from medieval plagues - in countries with no possibilities for such basics the risk of dying from infections still is much higher (see cholera spread in Haiti). I think, I don't have to tell you more. Would be interesting if you want to argue this.

And yes I'm aware that hygienic procedures could be harmful if done wrong, under- or overdosed. But that's something with almost all things in life...

To close the circle to the original posting: the hand cut may not get infected even if not treated because the original poster lives in a time and a country, where regular hygienic precautions already cover the most of the risks catching an infection in the first place and even if, due to high standards his health state is probably good enough to deal with the remaining infection risks. Some other place, some other time and he would have a much higher probability to die from even a small hand cut...

If the extreme chlorination (sp?) of drinking water is more part of a problem instead of a solution I personally can't decide from here - they don't use chlorine or anything here in my home town, having an almost sterile natural water source from the alps. They have a very close watch (hygienic precautions, again!') on it, though.

My misunderstanding. It wasn't clear that you meant things outside of medical procedures when you said hygienic procedures. I don't consider showering, brushing your teeth and general hand washing 'procedures', more like things you just do. I agree that all of this is a good thing, but when we do these things we don't use sterile water with chlorhexadine. Simple tap water is all that is necessary. Even water from your typical well is fine. My point is that there is so much made out of cleaning/disinfecting simple wounds with all sorts of preparations that have been shown to add no benefit of simple tap water. Even the meta-analysis posted previously showed that open fractures do well with tap water. Why bring a nuclear warhead to a knife fight? Especially in this age of increasing resistance; it may not matter in the pre-hospital environment but it is a big deal in the hospital.

Edited for spelling/grammar.

Edited by ERDoc
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Sorry for being Off Topic, but:

I`ve already heard that you guys only have chlorinated water. Do you actually drink your water out of the pipe too, or does that lead to buying more bottled water?

:rolleyes:

We have great tap water here. It's the only thing I will drink...no bottled water for me.

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Chlorinated or otherwise, if water is allowed to be consumed, some authority has (supposedly) tested it as "good". Due to problems sometimes cropping up, such as busted water mains, community wide, the order will come from that authority to boil the tapwater before use. In extreme cases, the word will go out for using only bottled water, or obtaining water from tanker trucks at specified locations.

I note that NYC water, even though I am kind of at the end of the citywide water main system, tastes different from that of Nassau County, on a different water supply system.

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For those that may not be aware, Europe, where Bernhard resides has very different standards, some believe that chlorination is a health hazard itself, no point on getting into floride controversy.

I believe if in Bavaria (correct me if I have been mislead) but there may be political war if chlorine was used ..

Now I live up north of Texas, in Canada eh, our water is chlorinated (although we also have had serious problems in a few communities a place called Walkerton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_Tragedy comes to mind) apparently some of the best water quality on the planet so we are told but that is geographical well not my under ground water town supply, I can't even drink or make coffee, due high sodium level's and boiling veggies or pasta one gets this foam ? I was with soap and all soap is antibacterial never had a simple cut get infected and I get lots cause I am a clutz.

So for those that trust implicitly in a government assuring quality of water .. well think again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_Tragedy

cheers

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Chlorination. Fluoridation. We've got it all. That's why I only drink Fiji (even though our city water tastes fine).

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Yeah, we have clean water to wash, clean clothes and drink as much as one can. I have washed cut of my own and my children with tap water w/o any ill effects.

While not totally relevant to the current conversation, my favorite comedian Lewis Black has a few ideas about water.

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