About a month ago, I was diagnosed with Salmonella, and the doctor suspected that I contracted it after coming into contact with an infected fish or reptile on a collecting trip. Since then, I've been extra careful about washing my hands and keeping things clean both in the lab and in the field. However, I haven't been feeling well over the past few days, and I think I might have picked it up again somehow. Either that, or I was never entirely well to begin with and it just came back.
Anyway, does anyone have any "protips" for keeping clean in the field? I wear latex gloves and bring along a bottle of Purell sanitizer when I'm out mucking around in the water, and I wash my hands religiously after working with fish in the lab. Am I doing something wrong, or just unlucky?
Hygine In The Field
Started by
Guest_Histrix_*
, Aug 23 2007 02:25 PM
16 replies to this topic
#2
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 02:46 PM
I have some German blood running through me and I've adopted the Friedrich Nietzsche rule. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger"
I try to keep gulping stagnant water to minimum but by golly I don't see how you could possibly keep sterile in the field. I guess if you handle aquatic reptiles you should clean throughly before contacting your mouth, eyes etc. Do you think you contracted salmonella from handling fish? Maybe bad food?
I try to keep gulping stagnant water to minimum but by golly I don't see how you could possibly keep sterile in the field. I guess if you handle aquatic reptiles you should clean throughly before contacting your mouth, eyes etc. Do you think you contracted salmonella from handling fish? Maybe bad food?
You're putting us on aren't you!I wear latex gloves and bring along a bottle of Purell sanitizer when I'm out mucking around in the water
#3
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 02:55 PM
I don't practice any kind of hygene in the field, I have even made the terrible mistake of drinking down stream from a beaver pond and nothing ever came of it. Sure, I have contracted Salmonella but it was at my job, in a winery, drinking the tap water.
EDIT: It wasen't Salmonella, it was E. Coli. I always get those two mixed.
EDIT: It wasen't Salmonella, it was E. Coli. I always get those two mixed.
#4
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 03:08 PM
Do you think you contracted salmonella from handling fish? Maybe bad food?
This is what the doctor and the guy from health department who called me at work (talk about embarrassing!) seemed to think. Of course, it's probably easier to just blame the fish...
But I'm honestly not sure where I could have picked it up. I've never had this sort of problem before.You're putting us on aren't you!
They are those big, thick rubber gloves with the textured hands -- I don't know if they're latex or not. I keep them with me on trips, and I only put them on when I'm picking through sein hauls (sometimes we get baby musk turtles in our nets). It's a pain in the butt, which is why I'm annoyed that after all that bother, I'm still getting sick
#5
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 03:38 PM
I've never had a problem picking up anything working outdoors or even when we're just out camping and fishing. This sounds a little ridiculous, but sometimes when you're too careful is where bad stuff happens. People that shelter their babies from every germ and virus possible sometimes end up with sickly kids because they didn't build up an immunity. I know you can't become immune to salmonella, but other stuff out there. Perhaps it was bad food, salmonella and e.coli keep popping up in all sorts of foods out of the grocery store.
#6
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 04:12 PM
I guess this is just part of being a field biologist. Diseases and parasites probably come with the territory. Eventually, you're going to pick up something, be it Salmonella, schisto, bot flies, etc. Just looking at the list of stuff that I could potentially pick up while in Central America is kind of scary. But if I can, I'd like to take precautions. I can't afford to be sick.
#7
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 05:14 PM
The most intense parasites/effects of weird drugs case I've ever encountered was Schultes, the ethnobotanist from Harvard who is still alive in his 90s. He spent much of WWII in Amazonia living with peoples WAY up the rivers, and then did some later field work. I have it on good authority that he has protozoan and fungal infections that are still essentially unknown to science. One of his last students' books was The Serpent and the Rainbow, about looking for the active ingredients in zombie powder in Haiti and later the inspiration for the truly lurid movie of the same name.
So yeah, weird stuff can happen. But not in my safe Alabama home! (HA!)
So yeah, weird stuff can happen. But not in my safe Alabama home! (HA!)
#8
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 05:28 PM
According to the microbiologists in the department, the only fail safe wash is good ol' ethanol. It's hell on your skin, but if you're having issues, you should really fear the 0.1% that Purell DOESN'T kill. And as they point out, there's rapidly more that's falling into that 0.1%, even when the scale is on an order in the zillions.
I guess what caught my attention was the guy who works with Mercer staph only uses ethanol and chlorine bleach to clean his house. He doesn't trust anything else. This coming from a guy who isolated Mercer from the keyboards in the computer lab... If he doesn't trust 99.9% products, I don't trust 99.9% products
Todd
I guess what caught my attention was the guy who works with Mercer staph only uses ethanol and chlorine bleach to clean his house. He doesn't trust anything else. This coming from a guy who isolated Mercer from the keyboards in the computer lab... If he doesn't trust 99.9% products, I don't trust 99.9% products
Todd
#9
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 05:45 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Purell stuff is mostly ethanol, isn't it?
#10
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 06:13 PM
I guess this is just part of being a field biologist. Diseases and parasites probably come with the territory. Eventually, you're going to pick up something, be it Salmonella, schisto, bot flies, etc. Just looking at the list of stuff that I could potentially pick up while in Central America is kind of scary. But if I can, I'd like to take precautions. I can't afford to be sick.
It is just part of the business..There are all sorts of fun ways to wind up sick or injured working in the field and really most just happen no matter how you try not not have them occur.
Me...I like parasites so do not mind housing them for a bit
Bacteria and viruses are not all that welcome though.
#11
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 06:44 PM
Turtles! I think that commercial sales of baby turtles was banned (now lifted?) because of salmonella fears. Stay away from the turtles.
#12
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 07:14 PM
Turtles! I think that commercial sales of baby turtles was banned (now lifted?) because of salmonella fears. Stay away from the turtles.
There is much less chance of getting Salmonella from a turtle in the wild than eating a salad from a salad bar at a local restaurant or your own home. You get Salmonella from contaminated water not the animal.
I would have no issue licking a wild turtle but I'm not about to lick my captive ones in restricted bodies of water.
Now granted if a wild turtle craps or tinkles on your hand do not rush to shove a twinkie in your mouth without washing up first.
#13
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Posted 23 August 2007 - 09:51 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Purell stuff is mostly ethanol, isn't it?
Yes, but it's only 65% with a heap of other crap. I'm talking about pure 95%. I should have made that clear. Sorry. And I was more addressing Kate's particualr situation than others, since there are various controls on purchasing pure ethanol.
Only Richard would lick a turtle...
#14
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Posted 24 August 2007 - 05:23 AM
I think a lot of cases of salmonella come from eating food that came in contact with counter tops where unwashed chicken had sat. How did they rule out chicken? Are you a vegetarian? Don't you eat in restaurants? It just seems there are plenty of easier explanations on how someone might catch this without having to resort the unlikely occurrence of your field trip.
Did they give you any proof, or are they just guessing? Maybe doctors should act like scientists and not guess so much. Did the health official come up with this explanation independently, or had he seen the doctor's report? Was he influenced by that? I once had been very sick and the doctor told me I caught a very very rare virus in the lake. His treatment wasn't working. I eventually went to another doctor and found I had mono and strept throat - no funny lake virus for me. They fixed me right up.
r
Did they give you any proof, or are they just guessing? Maybe doctors should act like scientists and not guess so much. Did the health official come up with this explanation independently, or had he seen the doctor's report? Was he influenced by that? I once had been very sick and the doctor told me I caught a very very rare virus in the lake. His treatment wasn't working. I eventually went to another doctor and found I had mono and strept throat - no funny lake virus for me. They fixed me right up.
r
#15
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Posted 24 August 2007 - 08:25 AM
A word about Doctors. That is why they call it "practicing medicine". This is a tough world we live in and I have found no quick cures. Time is the best and second and third opinions before leaping into a big fritz for nothing does not hurt. I have played, caught, eaten just about anything. Well not anything but growing up in South Louisiana I tramped the swamps with shorts and running shoes. Picked up baby turtles, caught baby turtles, caught snakes, fish you name it I think I caught it all but one. Salmonela? spelling" I just wash my hands with good old hot water and soap before I eat. I wash my hands religiously when I am preparing a meal at home. And I think one guy up there already mentioned that there are more germs on a common kitchen counter than in a field trip. Grant it I have never been to any other continent collecting. Caught many beautiful fish in Canada but nothing bad happens in Canada right? 
Daniel
Daniel
#16
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Posted 24 August 2007 - 11:56 AM
I spend a lot of time in swampy stagnant places and have never gotten sick from the conditions. (That said, I have gotten food poisoning from one of those Subway-in-a-gas-station sandwich shops when doing field work when nothing else was around for miles and miles).
My guess would be that you picked it up from food. Also, if they didn't run specific tests to identify it, you could also have a virus (like norovirus) which also has similar symptoms. I caught the Norwalk virus years ago while it was running around. Wound up in the ER. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
My guess would be that you picked it up from food. Also, if they didn't run specific tests to identify it, you could also have a virus (like norovirus) which also has similar symptoms. I caught the Norwalk virus years ago while it was running around. Wound up in the ER. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
#17
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Posted 24 August 2007 - 02:14 PM
It was definitely Salmonella, unfortunately, and I'm still not sure where I got it from. I went on a collecting trip and then visited my significant other's parents' that week, so I could have picked it up from any number of places. However, since nobody else in my bf's family was sick, and my bf and I ordered the same thing when we went out to eat, but he didn't get sick, the health department assumed that it came from me coming into contact with a few of the turtles we caught. This was probably the easiest explanation for them -- it didn't involve calling every restaurant and grocery store we patronized over that 3 day window when I could have become infected.
I'm also beginning to think that I never really shook the Salmonella to begin with. I haven't felt great since I first got sick, but over the past few days I've been finding myself "trapped" in the bathroom for 45 minutes at a time, just like before. Not fun
I'm also beginning to think that I never really shook the Salmonella to begin with. I haven't felt great since I first got sick, but over the past few days I've been finding myself "trapped" in the bathroom for 45 minutes at a time, just like before. Not fun
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