Perhaps we wash too much?
I won’t mention some of the stuff we played in as kids. yet mom had to remind us to wash our hands before dinner, if we were good we would rinse them off and wipe them on our jeans to dry. I still don’t have any known allergies.
I believe that today’s extra clean society has created most of our allergies by lack of exposure to allergens by growing and developing immune systems.
i agree 110% - i always washed my hands and stuff before i ate but i never liked those bacterial hand gels and stuff. Whats amazing… is i remember being younger thinking about this… i was smart enough THEN…
I have a problem swallowing pills… so i never took tylenol or anything in pill form for colds… then i started thinking… maybe i’m better off letting my body fight it off. I NEVER take anything for a common cold. Unless I have severe congestion or the flu or somethin i wont take anything to fight it. In my own head i think it’ll make liquid medicine more effective in my older years… then again i’m probably screwing myself anyways because i’ll just catch the “superbugs” all you azithromax freaks are causing LOL
~Haz~
I love george carlin BTW… LOL funny funny funny
~Haz~
Haven’t had the flu since 1977, my wife (at the time) gave it to me. Had a few colds though. They usually last about 3 days.
I refuse to go to the doctor or take antibiotics unless I absolutely have too. As a result among my family I am known as the only one who can bounce back insanely fast after catching a cold, and this is assuming I become sick in the first place.
I’ve had it in my head for a while that all the medicines we take and the antibacterial products we use might not be as good for us as we like to think.
Playing in the mud as kids, picking up frogs, climbing trees and then doing something “disgusting” like biting our nails or picking our nose before eating a sandwich without washing our hands certainly true of me as a child and probably most of you as well. All the time building up our antibodies and resistance to disease.
Like most people, I get the occasional cold and bounce back after a day or two, take paracetamol or aspirin for the (rare) severe headache etc, I have been off sick twice in the last three years, once following an operation, the second after learning that motorbikes come off worse in arguments with trucks. Note, the cleanliness of my hands had nothing to do with either of these (although the second nearly negated the need to wear clean underpants 
)
With everything gleamingly clean and sterile, we are raising our kids in an environment akin to an operating theatre, not allowing them to build any tolerance to disease and potentially condemning them to a life of illness, let them get dirty, it’ll make them stronger!
glad im not alone LOL… i also havn’t had the flu in YEARS… lately the past 2 years tho the hospital has required me to get the flu shot…
~Haz~
Nice theory, but… eh… I’m 48. I played in all the stuff you did, prolly more. And I’ve been allergic to everything except food since the age of 3. Sometimes it is the luck of the draw. Our immune systems go through so much reshuffling before and just after we are born. Sometimes we get hypersensitivity to certain things. And that part of it is just dumb luck. I once had an allergy specialist ask me if I was actually born on this planet, because I tested allergy-positive to everything.
And I’ve developed allergies to most of the antibiotics out there through too much exposure to them, not the opposite.
So, genetics plays a huge role in this, and luck.
Diane
Absolutely right. When I was in elementary school we had a kid who had allergies. Let me repeat ONE kid in the entire school. Now there is more than that in each classroom!
I think the problem is taking it for the right reasons and not, no reasons to take it for viral infections since antibiotics won’t help, the problem is many people go to the doctor expecting to just get one because they feel like crap and want a feel good medicine, which in essence if the doctor is a good doctor won’t give them one unless he/she has evidence it is bacterial otherwise he/she is creating more problems long term.
the problem is if the doctor does not give them anything, then the patient gets upset says my doctor will not give me anything and finds a new doctor
antibiotics has changed humankind and have increased in our life expectancy big time and just improved our way of life, so has most of medical science in general in just 150 years so many advances have given us so much more to life, that most of us would never want to live in the dark ages.
I don’t think it is as simple as being an all or nothing like never wanting to go to doctor or doing one extreme or nothing.
in all honesty i think most of how things effect us has much to do with genes which is why some of us get cancer and others do not.
The problem is that antibiotics are germ warfare. All the original antibiotics were obtained from molds, fungi and bacteria… cause they are the ones who make them to cut down on competing organisms for food in their environments. All the -mycins come from mycetes. Penicillimides - from penicillin molds.
But, here’s the tricky part… bacteria have the ability to suck up random bits of genetic material from other bacteria that have basically exploded from the antibiotics they fell victim to. The bacteria add that to their own genome and sometimes they get lucky and find a piece of genetic material that codes for antibiotic resistance. Instantly you have a new antibiotic resistant strain.
The same thing can happen inside your body… and that is why it is so important to take all your medication when you are prescribed. Leaving weakened and partially resistant bacteria alive (though only taking part of your prescription) can lead to very resistant strains.
And there are types of bacteria that you can be carrying in your gut that are already antibiotic resistant to one degree or another. Clostridium difficile is one that can cause all kinds of problems if it gets a chance to overgrow in your intestines after you’ve killed off all your normal (highly susceptible) flora (mostly E. coli) with taking antibiotics.
Pro-biotics is a good idea as a general rule, and an absolute necessity after treatment with antibiotics. These are strains of Lactobacilli found in some yogurts. You can also find them in pill form in health food stores. These are “commensals” or bacteria that are beneficial in that they block the binding sites and compete for space with bacteria that can cause disease, like C. difficile.
Diane
c. diff is bad… those “hand gels” don’t work for it either… it’s labeled on all of our antibacterial gel dispensers at the hospital “Does not work for C. Diff”
~Haz~
All this hand sanitizer stuff is just a money maker for the company that produces it… including the antibacterial soap. It is totally worthless for most things. It won’t kill Hepatitis B either. It is only useful for stuff that is fragile anyway, like some viruses.
A 90% water/10% bleach solution is the best for sanitizing surfaces, followed with a 90% water/10% antibacterial sanitizer solution spray down. And nothing beats plain old soap and water and a thorough hand washing for preventing the spread of diseases.
I volunteered in the neo-natal intensive care unit of a large hospital. We did not use hand sanitizer. We used… soap and water.
Diane
LOL you’ve almost quoted the rest of the signs we have hanging up LOL… the antibacterial stuff is for the “visitors” i guess… all the employee’s wash their hands. Especially our department… i work with soiled surgical instruments…
~Haz~
EEK! LOL… I bet you do wash your hands… a lot!
I have to be careful around anything bloody. After three full rounds of Hep B immunizations I failed to titre positive. I’m one of those unlucky 10% who do not achieve immunity for this nasty, nasty disease. And because I didn’t achieve immunity, I most likely would end up as a carrier if I were ever to get infected with it. It stopped my career as a lab medicine technologist… not that I miss being up to my elbows in other people’s blood and pee and bone marrow and other tissue samples! 
Diane
Gee..I dunno Diane..that sounds awfully tempting. I wouldn’t mind taking a stroll, waist deep in blood, urine, and other samples… 
I mean, why go to the swimming pool when you can just swim at your job instead?
This solution also works well for keeping flies and bugs away at your summer cookouts. I know for a fact that it repels flies, ants(but not Aunts) and other bugs. it works well for wiping tables, and other surfaces that are used around food.
that sounds a bit kinky to me.
Neat! Thanks for the tip!
Diane