pre-op betadine reaction?

Did they tell you to use it on your face? My recollrction from the past was to just use it on my body, concentrating on the surgical area.

Jan

Are you on antibiotics, steroids, or painkillers? Even stress can cause skin eruptions.

I agree with Jan. We don't use stuff like that on patient's faces. It's really harsh.

Face, hair...plus the whole body including the delicate parts (they sort of itch/hurt too)...they even have plastified detailed picture instructions in the shower stall!
I refused to wash my hair with it offering to wear 2 of those white surgical hair covers. But I did the face, nostrils, ears etc. My eyebrows are now peeling!
Anything other than hydracourt good for this?
No antibiotics, meds etc other than tylenol extra strength, and my normal meds including a daily dose of antihystamine (Zyrtec).

Sharon

Sharon, maybe coconut oil applied right to your skin?

I would have to find a place to buy it here but I could try...thanks.
For now I am slathering hydrocourt all over and it seems to be working but that could just be the greasy/creamy part doing the trick too.
For now most of the face is better but the eyes look like the creature from the blue lagoon. Red, crackly, dry and scaly.
Sharon

I'd stick with the HC cream and not introduce other stuff until this clears up. If things do not continue to improve you need to see a dermatologist.

I cannot believe they had you use it all over like that. There's not even much evidence that it makes much difference in the infection rate.

Jan

Jan,
We had a fatal outbreak of Nosocomial (sp?)(caught in the hospital) infections in a number of hospitals and clinics in France that were very antibiotic resistant and caused numerous deaths.
It was so bad that the Gvrnmt created a new protocol that was partcularly stict.
They usually have you take one betadine shower the night before in your home and another one the morning upon arrival to the hospital. Eyes, ears, hair and especially those private parts that are so delicate all suffer from it. You must use the whole bottle of the red one.
They say that the % of infections has greatly diminished since the start of it.
I had straw hair and burnt buns for weeks afterwards but this is the first time that my face turned to scales. The creases at the side of my eyes are red, cracked and burning and my eyes are still red.
I'll stick with the HC cream for now...I have been using eyedrops too in the hopes that they will help.
Sharon

I would suspect the main reason for the reduction in infections was a crackdown on handwashing between patients as opposed to patients showering more areas with antimicrobials. That was a problem in the US too. Doctors were the worst offenders.

Jan

I am always shocked to see my surgeons and their teams with their glasses on (yes, I do prefer that they were them! One really wants them to see what they are doing) and touching them...Do they put them in a serilizer? Autoclave?
Same question about their jewelery...I have to take mine off...Why don't they?
I agree about the hand wash...
Here they discovered that the mop that they used to wash the floors was the number one vector of bacteria along with the sponge that they used to clean the bathrooms...so now they are supposed to be disposible and not to be taken from one room to the next.
We have come a long way...
Sharon

Doctor's white coats are VERY bad offenders for germs: they hardly ever launder them.

We're pushing "bare below the elbow" that the AACN supports. So short sleeve tops and no watches, etc. We also are pushing wipeable shoes, only.

We have this funky thing called Bioquell (robotic thingy) that cleans after C Diff patients, too. Really funky technology that has, with other things, dropped C Diff rates in our facility WAY low. Every cleaning thing we use is one room only and disposable or it gets sterilized after its one use.

Briefly they made us use antimicrobial wipes on patients, but you cannot use them on tender places and bottoms, and it spiked up the UTIs with foleys, cause people weren't soaping them up. Seriously, best thing is friction and good old soap and water.