Hand Sanitizer

[FootballFanatic]

So I know that I haven't consumed a source of gluten but I still feel like I've had some minor contaminations. (Hard to tell because I suffer from panic attacks and the symptoms can be very similar).

Today I was away from the house and hungry so I purelled my hands and then ate some gluten-free pretzels. Halfway through I realized the purell probably doesn't kill gluten, huh?

Duh....

[JNBunnie1]

  FootballFanatic said:

Duh....

Don't you hate that feeling? "I'm a dumba**".............. Worst feeling. When I need to eat out of a bag and my hands aren't safe I 'drink' out of the bag, which really only works with smaller bags, but it keeps the food safe.

[FootballFanatic]

Yeah I wanted to do that but I was in a huge lecture hall sooo, didn't want to call too much attention to myself.

[ravenwoodglass]

  FootballFanatic said:

Yeah I wanted to do that but I was in a huge lecture hall sooo, didn't want to call too much attention to myself.

This may sound a bit nutty but if you have times when you can't wash but still want to eat safely you could put some nonlatex powderless plastic gloves in a baggie and keep that handy. I get my gloves at the drug store, be sure to make sure they are NOT powdered though because the powders they use can be problematical in themselves.

[JNBunnie1]

  FootballFanatic said:

Yeah I wanted to do that but I was in a huge lecture hall sooo, didn't want to call too much attention to myself.

I know how you feel. I've finally given up worrying about how the wierd stuff I do on a regular basis appears to other people. For the longest time I wouldn't do stuff like pick a wedgie in a store or blow my nose in front of people. For some reason, sometime in the past couple years, I completely stopped caring. It's not even that I'll never see those people again, it's that I don't really care even if I do. I think it helped to realize that people don't pay as much attention to me as I used to think they do, you know how you think people are watching you in your car? Yeah, no they're not.

[Guhlia]

A bit of advice... Carry some wet ones in your purse or pocket. They won't kill the gluten, but they'll certainly wipe some/most/all off of your hands. I do this and thus far I have only been glutened a handful of times without knowing why. It seems to work well for me.

[FootballFanatic]

  Guhlia said:

A bit of advice... Carry some wet ones in your purse or pocket. They won't kill the gluten, but they'll certainly wipe some/most/all off of your hands. I do this and thus far I have only been glutened a handful of times without knowing why. It seems to work well for me.

Thanks for the advice. They were pretzel sticks so I will probably just use the bag to put them into my mouth...if you can picture that one

Hahaha

[buffettbride]

We had to go through the "hand sanitizer doesn't kill gluten" thing with my daughter's teachers. The one thing that drives me crazy about her school is that they rely on hand sanitizer more than hand washing.

You can't "kill" gluten because it isn't alive, so my daugther has some wipes in her desk and in her lunchbox she uses to clean her personal space when she knows it might have been contaminated. We learned this lesson the hard way after 3 glutenings in 2 weeks at school. Not fun.

One good thing about washing your hands vs. hand sanitizer, is it gets rid of so much more of the bad stuff and doesn't give you a false sense of cleanliness. Most of the hand sanitizer (and antibacterial products) on the market doesn't really clean as good as manufacturers would have you believe. Mainly, it doesn't kill the bad MRSA strain of staph which is the "superbug" we are all hearing about on the news. My family has had a horrible bout with MRSA the last two years and we're just FINALLY getting on top of it.

I prefer wipes because it is closer to a real hand-washing than anything else.

[melmak5]

There was a study that showed the only part of using hand sanitizer that does anything is the friction created when you move your hands back and forth.

I wish I could find it, but the only thing hand sanitizer is really good for is drying out your skin.

Wet-wipes are a good suggestion, at least they have the chance of taking something off your skin.

[L.A.]

My crazy celiac solution...I put a baby face cloth with soap and water on it in a bag and then another cloth with just water in another baggie and am able to wash and rinse my hands

[kbtoyssni]

  L.A. said:

My crazy celiac solution...I put a baby face cloth with soap and water on it in a bag and then another cloth with just water in another baggie and am able to wash and rinse my hands

That's what I do, too! Although I do it for environmental reasons. This way I'm not throwing away wipes all the time. I always do this for picnics because it's hard to wash juice off my hands when I'm in the middle of nowhere.

[Glutenfreefamily]

  melmak5 said:

There was a study that showed the only part of using hand sanitizer that does anything is the friction created when you move your hands back and forth.

I wish I could find it, but the only thing hand sanitizer is really good for is drying out your skin.

Not only that but if your hands are dry and cracked you just opened yourself for catching something.

[jerseyangel]

  L.A. said:

My crazy celiac solution...I put a baby face cloth with soap and water on it in a bag and then another cloth with just water in another baggie and am able to wash and rinse my hands

Not crazy at all! I do this--it's the only way I feel really clean.