blood and rubbing alcohol fears

[vicky23]

hi,
I've started working at Iceland. Today I put through something that had blood on it. so I was sure I didnt touch it but just to be sure I came home and poured a load of rubbing alcohol on my hands to disinfect but then my skin felt a bit tingly and I read on the bottle that it can cause effects if come into contact with skin or swallowed!! But it also says on the bottle you can use it for hardening skin so you would therefore have to have it in contact with skin? But not as much as I poured into my hands!
Arrrghhh on the plus side I'm no longer freaking out as much about the possibility of having touched a minute amount of blood :(
Any nurses out there use rubbing alc? and is this sufficient to use IF I did happen to come into contact with blood? and also is it ok to use rubbing alcohol poured over your hands to clean them?
Thanks

[missybct]

I'm not a nurse or doctor, but I am guessing you are worrying about the blood you may have come into contact going into your blood stream? Unless you had a cut or open wound, it won't get in.

Is the rubbing alcohol you are referring to the alcohol gel? There is no real side effect to this gel other than it may make your skin a bit sensitive (hence the tingles) and that it smells very strong! They have alcohol gel in all hospitals now and ask you to use them when you arrive and leave, so don't panic about using it because it's common practice.

[vicky23]

thanks for replying missy :) yeah those are my fears cos I do actually have some cuts on my hands due to dry skin I'm really just trying to make myself believe 'I didn't touch the blood' because I'm like 99.9% sure I didn't but you know that 0.01% that goes round and round your head?! lol
This wasn't a gel which I use al lot this was pure surgical spirit which I got to clean my tweezers (random I know but it said to clean them with this on the packet)

[missybct]

I'm sure it wasn't even blood you touched - it could have just been a packet that was open that had red food or dye in. But yes, I know that feeling when you can't get it out of your head don't worry!

I am sure using surgical spirit is fine - I think my Mum uses on her patients feet (she's a chiropodist) so I should imagine there will be no problems there.

For your dry skin, using some e45 cream works wonders for healing the skin. I had very bad OCD as a teenager and was constantly washing my hands which made the crack and I used this and they healed really well.