Preventing Re-Infection From an Illness

I wrote an article about how I am afraid of getting sick. Because when I get sick, my body is like “I got you! Let’s Go Big or Go Home!" Ugh.

I have been a germaphobe for the last 23 years – since the first of my 3 kids were diagnosed with asthma and hospitalized. Surprise! Shortly after that, my other 2 kids and I were all diagnosed with asthma. That’s 4 of us with asthma (in a family of 5). My genes really stink.

My youngest 2 kids had a combined total of 12 hospitalizations (2 in intensive care units.) In addition to that, all 4 of us have had countless visits to urgent care and the emergency room and lots of trips to the pharmacy. At one point, I told my pharmacist that I would just sign over my paycheck. You know, just to make things easier.

So, when one of us gets sick, we know we are in for a rough month. Our nebulizers are our best friends! Please send advice on how to break up with my nebulizer.

We found it helpful to keep a nebulizer on each floor of the house so we don’t have to walk so far when we are struggling to breathe.

But one thing we do is to try to prevent spreading our germs to other family members. We also try to avoid re-infecting ourselves once we are sick.

Ways our family with asthma avoids re-infections of illnesses

I have tried a few things over the years:

Throw away my toothbrush

I throw away my toothbrush when I first get sick, and then after I feel better. So, I go through a total of 3 new toothbrushes every time I get sick. I feel like I will never get better if I keep using a germ-infested toothbrush every day.

Throwing away my toothpaste

If my tube of toothpaste is close to being empty, I throw it away. If it is still pretty full, I squeeze out a big ole blob of toothpaste into the trash to make sure any of the toothpaste that was infected from my toothbrush is thrown away.

Throw away my lip balm

This one means rounding up my upstairs lip balm, downstairs lip balm, office lip balm, and purse lip balm – and chucking all of them.

Wash my spacer

In a perfect world, I would wash my spacer every week. I am well known for being clumsy, and cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. So using a clean spacer with my inhalers is a must.

Clean my bedside water bottle

I sometimes forget this one. I should also wash this more often than I do – don’t judge me.

Replace the kitchen towels every day

I have a whole drawer of kitchen towels, with a different towel for each holiday. I mean, how can I walk past a kitchen towel with adorable cats carrying Easter baskets and wearing bunny ears? I just have to buy it! I put out new kitchen towels and bathroom hand towels every night and toss that day’s towel in the wash. I do this every day, even if no one is sick. I feel like it can prevent spreading of germs if one of us is sick but does not have symptoms yet. If one of us has COVID, flu, pneumonia, etc., we use paper towels and toss those to avoid sharing our germs.

Wipe down handles, doorknobs, keyboards, and remotes with a bleach wipe

We also did this before COVID. There are plenty of other germs out there – strep throat, stomach flu, influenza, etc. Sanitizing any shared surfaces has helped keep the germs from spreading through the family.

What have y’all tried to keep the germs at bay? Is there something I have missed? Please share in the comments below!