Do you wash your hands after you use the restroom?

[Anonymous]

I am prone to eczema, only on the very tips of my fingers, and so I don't wash my hands very often. The more I wash, the more my fingertips seem to rot. And if you think this is an acceptable tradeoff (fewer germs for more cracks and blisters) you try typing or just going about your life with deep, open, refuse-to-heal fissures creeping up under your fingernails. It's seriously so bad that I have to sleep wearing gloves so that my nasty greasy steroid ointment stays on all night.

Sure, I'll do the "see, I'm a handwasher" pantomime in a public restroom when I'm likely to be observed, but otherwise, I keep my hands as dry as possible.

[Anonymous]

Meant to add, I recently did a sinkful of dishes without rubber gloves, and had to take a day off work later that week because my fingers were so damaged and painful that I literally couldn't get myself ready in the morning, much less do any of my work.

Suggestions?

[Anonymous]

To all of you who don't always wash your hands -- what about the germs on the toilet lid that you put down before you flush (or do you not do that either?). If you have men or boys in your house, they touch their penis and then touch the handle to the toilet, which you are also touching when you flush. How can you think you aren't picking up germs?

No wonder so many of the kids I teach have to be told to wash their hands after using the bathroom!! I didn't know so many people didn't do this at home!

[Anonymous]

Always after going into a bathroom. Open bathroom door with tissue upon exiting b/c of all the non-hand washers. So gross. Am OCD about germs and have to keep myself from washing too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

For those of you who don't wash your hands, do you realize that the person who used the public bathroom before you may have pooped and touched the stall lock and flushed the toilet BEFORE washing their hands? So when you're leaving without washing your hands...get it? It's gross!

A couple of you have mentioned this part. I'm the first "I don't wash after pee, ever" poster.

Here's my reply to you: once I enter the sanctum of the public restroom, at work, Costco, the NJ Turnpike, wherever ... I do not touch anything with my fingers. That's right, nothing. Not the door, not the lock, not the toilet, not the toilet paper holder, not the hook for your purse, not the faucet handle if there is one. Nothing.

I have various quick ways of avoiding skin-to-metal contact when dealing with the doors, locks, etc. I use: the bottom hem of my shirt, a paper towel wrapped around my hand (grabbed as a walked in and headed toward my stall), sometimes i use my foot to flush or kick open a door on my way out.

Whatever it takes. In 20-some years I've become very very fast at this, and very adept with my feet/hips and other non-finger body parts.

So no, I at least and not touching a shitty toilet handle or faucet handle.

I hear ya, lady! I don't know what you people are doing that you are constantly getting pee on your hands, but I don't. On the rare occasion that it happens, of course I would wash my hands. However, I find any and all surfaces of public bathrooms to be far nastier than my own pee. Like this infamous PP (by the way, how can this thread have gone on this long without a PP pun joke?), I don't touch surfaces in public bathrooms. If I am alone, I would much rather not wash my hands and be touching faucets, paper towel dispensers, etc. if the restroom is particularly nasty. When I worked, I always did, mostly out of fear of being discovered as a non-washer.

[Anonymous]

1:04 again. Don't freak out on me, germaphobes. My unwashed hands aren't touching anything in the bathroom anyway. And I am most likely using hand sanitizer after I leave.

I do wash my hands religiously in the kitchen though. When cooking, I'm washing my hands between ingredients, every time I touch even a utensil that has touched raw meat, I use new utensils as the food is cooking so I'm not using the same tongs on the finished meat that was used when it was uncooked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Always in a public restroom, not always at home if I just peed. I do wash my hands before eating and at other points in the day though. If anyone in the house is sick I wash hands a lot more.

I don't get sick very often (except when my daughter gives me something she got at daycare) and have never had a yeast infection, so I see no reason to change.

For the previous poster-if someone was unstable enough to pee on themselves in front of me, the pee on their hand would be the least if my concerns.

I was illustrating the point about how non washers don't want to touch pee hands either so why wouldn't they wash too?

[Anonymous]

No, only in public.

[Anonymous]

Yes, especially if using a public restroom. The concern is more other people's germs then my own.

[Anonymous]

I know the "rinsers" at work too. The whole office knows; you aren't fooling anyone. Use soap.

[Anonymous]

It is absolutely ridiculous and ignorant to not wash your hands after using the restroom. Like a few others, I will direct contact with ALL parts of the room, including the door know/lever for the stall door and the door of the restroom itself. Just grab a piece of paper/tissue to open those. It is unbelievable how many women will just 'wash' (use just water, for about 5 seconds), then turn off the tap with their fingers directly, then leave by touching the door handle. Total ignorance.

[Anonymous]

<---PP here: Sent too fast -- I meant of course, I will AVOID direct contact with all parts of the room .... including the door knob ...

[Anonymous]

How do you know? Must be a small office. Maybe you need more privacy and more to do.

[Anonymous]

I am not sure why anyone would choose not to wash their hands after using the bathroom. Do you not feel your hands get dirty from wiping after you go to the bathroom, or when you change a tampon? It's incomprehensible to me. Do you not realize that diseases like hepatitis A are communicated in this way?

[Anonymous]

Only if someone else is in the restroom at the same time