It's flu season, some helpful tips to stay healthy

[Uuaww]

Alright, I'm a college student so health really isn't on my mind while here, but reading some of the topic on the board here, I have some pretty helpful tips you all should follow.
1. Open all bathroom doors with a paper towel. This is the main one I can give you, if you follow one peice of advice from me, listen to this. The bacteria on bathroom door handles, faucets, and basically anything else you can touch will just hunt you down and take you out. I am a biology major and we actually found more different types of harmful bactera on the door handle of a restaurant then we did on any other imaginable surface.

2. Wash your hands before and after eating anything. This one should be self-explanatory but most people don't do it. Think about how many surfaces you will touch while at Disneyworld. Now take the fact that only 32% of people wash there hands after going to the bathroom, and only 18% of that use soap. Also, I am not talking about a little soap rinse and wash away. You really have to scrub, see the bacteria will be stuck to the natural oils in your skin, so you need to use the oils in soap to really break it apart and clean out all harmfull bacteria. Usually 20-30 seconds of scrubbing is sufficent.

3. DO NOT use hand sanitizer. Alright, here me out on this one. Anything that says it kills 99.9% of bacteria, does just that, it kills 99.9% of bacteria. What it doesn't tell you is that it kills 99.9% of the weakest bacteria, it isn't random. This is important because the 0.1% that survives is the strongest and without care will multiply into a strain that will take you down via the flu, a bad cold or whatever else. Hand sanitizer is good if used with the techniques above, but as a stand-alone, it does a lot more harm in the long run than good.

Honestly folks, all you have to do is a few simple lifestyle changes and you won't get sick, my parents drilled this stuff into me and I usually get a cold once every 4-5 years and I have had the flu only once in my life when I was in 4th grade. Remember though, washing your hands is useless if you grab the handle right afterwards.

 

[Claudia Kellenberger]

You know, just last night I was in a Macy's bathroom at the mall. I was in one stall, a little girl was in the next stall, with her Mom standing guard at the stall door. I would say the little girl was about 7 years old. ( I saw them, later ). But the Mom was urging the little girl to hurry up, and the girl was saying to wait because she was "not finished" yet. Well, the little girl finished, exited the stall, and the Mom just said "OK - Let's Go", and both of them left without washing their hands. This Mom has not even taught her daughter about basic hand washing !!

Please people - don't forget to wash your hands! At vacation time, we don't need all those germs.

 

[eblack0409]

All this is true, and awesome advice....also take Vitamin C on a daily basis to help keep the immune system up.

 

[Uuaww]

About the vitamin C, you should know that once you get past 100% it does nothing and is just flushed out of your system, so eat like an orange for breakfast or drink some orange juice and you will be at your max for the day.

 

[figmentfan1]

How about- get a flu shot. No shortage this year!!

 

[Uuaww]

deleted since i was wrong.

 

[bethbuchall]

HAHAHAHA Yes lets pump ourselves full of more medicine, trick our bodies into thinking they are a lot stronger than they really are. We immune ourselves to medication, its why you shouldn't take antibiotics unless you really have to. So now when that huge strain of the flu comes along, that you can't immune or it comes to fast and there isn't enough your body won't know how to act, and I will guarantee that strain will be the most deadly of all time. We are setting ourselves up a mass epidemic. Everyone knows that small pox was harmless if chicken pox was already present. Well with no other less powerful strains of the flu ever present, the strong killer can just waltz right in.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[figmentfan1]

HAHAHAHA Yes lets pump ourselves full of more medicine, trick our bodies into thinking they are a lot stronger than they really are. We immune ourselves to medication, its why you shouldn't take antibiotics unless you really have to. So now when that huge strain of the flu comes along, that you can't immune or it comes to fast and there isn't enough your body won't know how to act, and I will guarantee that strain will be the most deadly of all time. We are setting ourselves up a mass epidemic. Everyone knows that small pox was harmless if chicken pox was already present. Well with no other less powerful strains of the flu ever present, the strong killer can just waltz right in.

A. The flu vaccine is not medicine. It is not a chemical. It is dead flu virus. So basically it's just like having the flu without feeling crummy. If you prefer to get sick, you will get the same immunity as you would have with a vaccine.

B. Antibiotics will not save you from the flu, nor would they ever have. Antibiotics kill bacteria. "Flu" is a virus, although secondary bacterial illnesses could occur after the virus wears you down.

C. Small pox and chicken pox are NOT related. Having chicken pox will not give you immunity to small pox. The small pox vaccine is actually a cow pox virus that creates an antibody similar to the small pox antibody. They discovered immunity to cow pox would protect from small pox because milk maids (who had all had cow pox), never contracted small pox, even when directly exposed.

D. The world has always been in danger of a mass epidemic. Bird flu is probably not it. If you want to worry, worry about ebola or something like that.

E. True, antibiotics can cause resistant bacteria (like MRSA), that's why drug companies are rich, the govt allows them to keep patents for years (costing us more) so the companies make huge profits and dump tons of money into R&d to develop the newest and best to keep the world as healthy as possible.

So, please don't confuse people with your misunderstandings. And yes, I have the microbiology degree to back this up.

I do agree that handwashing is the single most important way to fight infection, but please don't tell people not to get a flu shot when it can fight off unnecessary sickness (and keep from infecting others).

je

 

[Uuaww]

yeah, my post was off a bit, but ive learned that pumping people full of medicine when we have a natural way of beating it isn't the best decision, personally I think that flu shots should be restricted to those who are at high risk.

 

[Uuaww]

And people getting flu shots instead of washing your hands and stuff like that just shocks me, there are other things you can get from bathrooms besides the flu.

 

[gonemousin']

A. The flu vaccine is not medicine. It is not a chemical. It is dead flu virus. So basically it's just like having the flu without feeling crummy. If you prefer to get sick, you will get the same immunity as you would have with a vaccine.

B. Antibiotics will not save you from the flu, nor would they ever have. Antibiotics kill bacteria. "Flu" is a virus, although secondary bacterial illnesses could occur after the virus wears you down.

C. Small pox and chicken pox are NOT related. Having chicken pox will not give you immunity to small pox. The small pox vaccine is actually a cow pox virus that creates an antibody similar to the small pox antibody. They discovered immunity to cow pox would protect from small pox because milk maids (who had all had cow pox), never contracted small pox, even when directly exposed.

D. The world has always been in danger of a mass epidemic. Bird flu is probably not it. If you want to worry, worry about ebola or something like that.

E. True, antibiotics can cause resistant bacteria (like MRSA), that's why drug companies are rich, the govt allows them to keep patents for years (costing us more) so the companies make huge profits and dump tons of money into R&d to develop the newest and best to keep the world as healthy as possible.

So, please don't confuse people with your misunderstandings. And yes, I have the microbiology degree to back this up.

I do agree that handwashing is the single most important way to fight infection, but please don't tell people not to get a flu shot when it can fight off unnecessary sickness (and keep from infecting others).

je

Thank you! I'm not a big fan of people posting misinformation to the masses.

 

[figmentfan1]

So explain to me how the ANTIBODIES produced by the vaccine are not as good as those from getting the flu??? If you want to be technical, the vaccine is better. If you knew anything about the vaccine you would know that a lot of research goes into it and a new and different vaccine is created every year, AND there are multiple strains of the flu virus in the vaccine. So in all actuality you get immunity to MULTIPLE viruses from the shot, but only to one at a time from getting the flu. Not to mention actually having the flu is potentially very dangerous (and deadly) for those who are immunocomprimised, elderly, and children. And, even so some who are not immunocomprimised (maybe you or me, or someone we know) will die from complications of the flu- look for the statistics, they are there.

So you go get the flu, and perhaps you can help spread it to those whose immune systems can't fight it. That'll be a big help. Talk about doing something for you fellow man

 

[Uuaww]

i said people who are high risk should get the shots, you know those who might die. I could get really technical about how our world is at the maximum capacity etc. but in reality i just get pissed about flu shots and seeing commom folk get them just makes me mad.

Anyways sorry for misinforming people, i got out of my element, seriously just follow the 3 basic steps, and you won't get sick as often in the first place.

 

[Uuaww]

oh and filament, those are some harsh words; I start this topic to try to give people some helpful hints to not catch the flu and you wish the flu on me b/c i don't like flu shots and how they work? I dunno my mom is a nurse with her masters in nursing, so usually i take her advice on this kind of stuff. I am very good at protecting myself. I don't even get sick anymore.

 

[ObsessedwithWDW]

WASH WASH WASH THOSE HANDS ALL THE TIME!

 

[figmentfan1]

Yes, harsh words indeed.

I, like you, get PO'ed when I hear people say things that misinform others. Especially when they pull a TomCruise... (that's a different arguement)

I agree with the hand washing, but I don't agree with you telling people false information about the flu shot being bad for them. I didn't wish the flu on you, I just said that if you got it and carried it, all you would do was help the spead of it, which helps no one.

Let's face it folks, if it wasn't for vaccines, half of us wouldn't be here. Most would have died in childhood of things like small pox, rubella, rubeola, and polio. Thank God for science!

 

[Uuaww]

how would i help spread it? sure id have it, but I'm pretty sure my parents taught me well on how to control other people from getting sick when you are. Other than just staying clean, sneezing and coughing into your elbow is a lot better than your hand. (my dad taught me that one, he's a chef)

 

[Uuaww]

Now the other tip I have that I'm not sure if it actually works but I'm just saying in theory it might. When you have a sore throat, take a shot of the worst tequila you can find, itll clean it out and the alcohol does kill; so in theory, this might work.

 

[NJR]

While the advice about the handwashing is great (and the OP is absolutely right that people are not as diligent about handwashing as they should be), I have to agree with figmentfan1's point that the flu shot is not just about helping to prevent an individual from getting the flu (at least the specific strains that each year's vaccine is targetting) - it's also about limiting the spread of the flu. I am a young, healthy woman who is not in a "high-risk" group for serious complications should I happen to contract influenza, but if I were to get it then I could potentially pass it on to who knows how many other people - including those people who are more at risk of complications. Yes, sneezing or coughing into your elbow will help, but considering that respiratory droplets (like from coughing or sneezing) can be propelled up to 3 feet through the air, how can any person be certain that they did not cause any to fly through the air.

As you can probably tell, I am one of those "common folks" who does get the flu shot. If I have a chance to try to prevent illness, why wouldn't I do that? It could potentially save me 1-2 weeks worth of illness and discomfort, not to mention the loss of productivity if I had to be off of work.

 

[danny1649]

Really doesn't have anything to do Theme Park Attractions and Stategies.