I admit, I have a form of the phobia. It's the reason why I learned about Monk. A friend started calling me Monk, but didn't know why. I looked it up, watched it, and now understand why. AT LEAST IM NOT AS BAD!
But, alas, I know love the show.
What about you?

I wash my hands and use sanitizer and wipes constantly. I had to rearange my closet this morning before i could even get dressed! It was driving me CRAZY!

I wash my hands after I've been shopping these days, although I never used to. I posted on another board asking about this, and a lot of people do that. One person even said she rinsed off her cans, etc. from the grocery store, when she gets home! I'm not that bad!

I must say I wasn't that cautious about germs until I started watching this show! It made me a lot more abservant about shaking peoples hands etc.. Also recently I saw an intervew wTS and he mentioned resaurant menues and how dirty they are and it got me thinking too..... Alas alack!

I carry hand sanitizer w/me now but I don't use it in front of people.

YES! I was already conscious of handwashing because I am a teacher, but since getting hooked on MONK it has gotton worse! I have three bottles of GERM-X on my desk, one in my car, and one in my purse. Just in case!

After visiting big cities or riding the bus I can't wait to wash my hands! They just feel very dirty then but I guess they're not all that dirty.

I wash my hands many many times a day. We have a grocery store chain that has sanitizer hanging on the wall, as you walk in. Also, my church does the same thing. I always use it. Monk is right, shaking hands passes germs quickly. We never know where other people`s hands have been. I don`t even like to eat out these days. How do we know the worker`s really wash their hands. Money is very dirty, I always wash up after I touch cash or coins.

My doctors always told me that washing your hands often is one of the most important things you can do. Whenever I go to the store and have to use a cart I swear I can feel those germs on my hands and then I think of all the people that used that cart before me and imagine people coughing and sneezing on it, OMG I cant wait to get home and wash my hands !!! I use germ-x all the time since I have a new baby grandson. My daughter in law and I went to lunch today with the baby and we had our germ-x and wipes out wiping down everything It is a very germy world out there !! My son is a biologist/chemist so I dont know if this made me more aware of things ( you would be surprised what you will see under a microscope !

I wash my hands several times a day, particularly when cooking/handling food, and after I've gone out anywhere. I never could get into the hand sanitizers because I feel like whatever is on my hands is still there--you don't rinse that stuff off. I only feel clean if I'm soaping up and rinsing off. Odd, because hand sanitizers pretty much sanitize your hands. rofl. I hate the new bathroom hand soaps where you only get the lather--I don't feel clean with that stuff either.

Ugh! I know, I hate the foam soap! It also makes your hands dry, which allows more germs to get into your skin! I always wipe the handle of the cart at the store! But it's still not clean enough! If they hired me as maitnence(sp) staff, WalMart would nearly be up to Monkish Perfection! I'm turning my 2 year old nephew into Monk, he always wants a wipe now, he hates his hands being sticky or dirty.LOL

I wash off all my cans from the grocery store before I open them with a can opener. I just think thats normal. I use bottled water or a filtration filter before I even make coffee. I avoid public bathrooms like the plague and only take showers in hotels while on vacation-no bathtubs or hot tubs. I never shake hands with professional dog walkers. No matter how often they wash their hands! LOL!

I am a teacher so I wash my hands several times a day. I also have a bottle of GermX on my desk and at the back of the classroom by the door. There is also a stockpile in the closet when it starts to get low. I also keep a small bottle in my purse and in my car. Since I have started watching the show, I have come to realize that I am a bit of a neat freak. My students tell me that I have the cleanest, and neatest desk in the school, and from what I have seen they are right. There are no piles of papers on my desk and everything has a place, whether it is the stapler or the pencil cup. Also, I heard an interview with Tony where he talks about menus in restaurants. That has absolutely driven me crazy. I now have to wash my hands after I order. I also must use a straw when drinking and check my silverware. I am telling you I wasn't this bad until I started watching the show!

Oh, yeah, before opening a can I will wash the top off. I just don't hose everything down the minute I walk in the door.

You have to watch that bottled water, though. Just recently a local bottling plant was traced as the source of bottled water that had mold growing in it! They knew about the problem, but since the mold wasn't toxic, they didn't bother doing a recall!

Speaking of always drinking through a straw at restaurants, I also won't get refills in my area. They're doing this new thing all over where they ask you if you want a soda refill and take your glass, along with other glasses from your table and OTHER TABLES, and bring the drinks back in the same glasses--Lord knows whose glass you get back. They carry them over in a clump and I've seen them with as much as 6 glasses at once. I can't even imagine the scenario in which this passes health codes. Back in the day, they came back with a new, clean glass, or they brought the soda to the table in a pitcher. I love to see waitresses get your glass and then grab the glass of the old, drooling guy at the table next to you, clang them together while they're carrying them, and try to come back with your refill. Totally ghetto. "Wow. I didn't have floaties in my glass when I gave it to you. Is someone sneezing bread back there?"

I rarely eat out at restaurants and never ever at fast food places. I used to get the "flu" or food poisoning every couple of months and because I can't afford to miss work, I started to be more observent and careful where I ate. I became a vegetarian and my health has greatly improved. I eat mostly fruits and vegetables and if I get the craving for an all american hamburger, a flame grilled Boca burger with a tomato and onion are very satisfying. I haven't been ill in 2 years and I have saved a lot of money preparing my own food for myself and others. When I was 16 years old I got my first job at a fast food restaurant ( name not disclosed to protect the guilty). It was a real eye opener! dirty, dirty, dirty! I was working there for over a year when a woman customer ordered coffee for her and her husband. She came back within minutes telling me to pour the coffee out that it was terribly bitter. She wanted to know the last time we had cleaned the coffee maker filter or pot. We teenagers all looked at each uncomfortably, none of us had cleaned the pot or filter in the year + I was there and we just kept remaking it when it was empty. None of us drank coffee and it must have tasted like hell on earth. I won't even tell you how bad the coleslaw was, we didn't know it was supposed to be refrigerated. We just kept spooning it into little paper cups when ordered. Never trust a teenage chef! Not even the coffee! LOL!

not trying to go OT but did anyone watch Oprah yesterday? she had some people on there who actually had OCD and this Dr. Oz was tryign to help them. I had sports awards to go to yesterday so i forgot to watch it, but i did see a preview for it on Monday. Now let me just say the things that i saw through the preview, that Dr. Oz made this one woman in particular with OCD, it was appauling. Not even a normal person would do this. But he had the woman i guess touch the dumpster, then he told her to let go and then lick her hands!!! I mean come on! who..in the world...would do that....after touching a dumpster?! ugh
but im still kinda mad that i didnt get to see it! i wanted to hear what they all had to say about it and if they were cured or not.

GERMS!!! BAD!! I mean, I guess I'm not crippled by germaphobia, but, I do hate it. I was joking around with my friends and held out my hand to have them shake it. One of them knows I'm a total germaphobe so she coughed in ehr hand and held it out. I pulled my hand back away really quick. lol

!chik!

Ack!! I guess I'm just a little more germaphobic than I thought. One of my son's friends was over--she has no washer/dryer and very very little money so I let her wash her clothes at my house. Anyhoo, she cuts loose with this really wet, gooey, "look out, she's gonna blow" sneeze. Just barely gets her mouth covered but she sneezes right into her hands. Okay, at least she didn't nail half my living room, however--then she just kinda sits there. I hand her a couple of kleenex. No problem. Then she goes back to what she was doing. Five minutes go by. Ten. Fifteen. Then I kinda play it off like a joke, because I just know she's going to touch something sooner or later. "So, would you like to wash your hands or are you just letting all that air dry?" Then I laughed because we goof on each other anyway. It helps that she knows I'm neurotic. She washed her hands, but I still went through my house after she left and washed everything she might have touched. Ew. Ew, ew, and ew.

I never really thought of myself as being OCD until I just caught myself swabbing down the outside of a dish soap bottle with rubbing alcohol. And unfortunately, I don't know anyone in New Hope PA.

I was told, by my Dr, not to use the germ-killing soap/hand sanitizer very much---they kill all germs---good as well as bad. You do need a certain amount of the "good" ones to help fight off colds, etc.
Also, told by hubby not to use anti-bacterial soap ever at home--it kills off the bacteria in our septic system that destroys the, well, um, bodily waste.
That being said, I've never done what people tell me to, and having worked in the medical field for years and years, I wash my hands alot. With the anti-bacterial soap. (I pour yeast down the drains once a month for the bacteria.)

Meme

I carry hand sanitizer around with me constantly, i use it a lot and the great thing for me is that i buy it in twin packs and it kills 99.9% germs therefore leaving that one per sent to do whatever fighting in your body it needs.

My friends have told me that i have now got them washing their hands constantly now they say they now do it without realizing sometimes!! One of my friends told me i have gotten her crazy on the hand sanitizer (i once put some on her hands after she asked what it does and i said it washes your hands when your in a rush and can't get to a bathroom.) she says she now washes her hands like me "by the minutes" is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know but if it encourages people to have a more clear outlook on washing and hygiene then i don't mind though i don't go over board i'm still a big fan of washing my hands a lot, more than i should i guess but then again other people do other in excess as well like drink so you know it's a habit or addiction?

Also One of my classmates asked if anybody had change of a pound coin and i was about to say me when she said "eeee imagine how many hands have touched this it's a 1997 coin" i was thinking "no change sorry!!" and then we all went into a big discussion about germs, OCD, parents who clean to excess, and our own OCD traits. It was an appropriate conversation considering we were in Health and Social Care too.

....Pinkie....

This thread brings up two thoughts. The first is Bart simpson after he was told that there's no such things as cooties, cootie innoculations or cootie insurance - to which he replies "But Allstate took my money!"

The second was when I was much younger, I was sick as a dog and my mother sent me down the street, in the snow, to pay for her rather illicit 'smokes'. If you catch my drift.

I was so angry I coughed on the money - on purpose - the whole way and when I got to the door to deliver it, I handed it over quickly and drew back saying "Dont get too close, I wouldnt want you to get sick." At which point, the money got snatched back, up the chest level, right under the guys nose.

I still laugh about it today, but I was only 9 or 10. So I think I deserve a little slack. On a related note, using an iron on your money, as you would your clothes not only steralizes it but makes nice and crispy too.

And if you think menus are dirty, think about money. It changes hands constantly, goes in to a million strange pockets, drawers and registers, and on the rare occasion, up a nose or two as people do cocaine.

I tend to trust my money from the ATM to the store, but if it stays in the house too long, it gets ironed. But on the whole, I prefer my check card.

-M

A big welcome home!!! So glad your back and doing better. Money can also be washed by hand, or machine, then dried in the Microwave. Ironing is good too.

I really think this phobia is kind of silly. I mean there is germs all over the place there really is just no way to escape it.

I didn't know half of that stuff you posted--thanx, and thanx bunches for the yeast idea. I never would have thought of that.

I always had issues with the antibacteria soaps after reading articles on Triclosan. One thing that stood out to me was reading that something it does--and I can't remember the exact connection right now--can actually cause weight gain. We chicks don't like hearing that. At all. Not even as a joke. lol. It was an article I can no longer find, which suggested not using any soaps with Triclosan while dieting or trying to watch your weight. I really hope that's wrong.

My problem with the hand sanitizer is illogical--I just keep sitting there thinking okay, all the germs are dead but they're still on my hands. rofl. If I can just rinse it off, I'll be fine. I've used it on very rare occasion when I was desperate and then rinsed my hands as soon as I could get near a source of water. I mean like maybe 3 or 4 times I've used it. No more than that. I'm not sure why I have a mental block there--logically, rinsing it off makes no difference. In fact, that's the purpose of designing it so that it can be used without water.

Yes, but that's why they're phobias. Phobias are irrational fears. I can laugh at a lot of other people's phobias and for a minute, suspend the reality that others are now huddled over their computer screens....laughing at mine. rofl.

I don`t wash my own money. My kids used to leave it in their pockets, I would find it in the washer or dryer. I have a friend that hand washes his money. However, when I do touch or count cash, I wash my hands right away. It really does have a lot of germs on it. I always keep my hands clean, most of my phobia`s have to do with danger.

This reminds me of Mr. Monk Goes to the Circus. Sharona was terrified of elephants, and Monk just couldn`t understand her fear. It was so ironic, with all the fears Monk has, and Sharona had to put up with all of them. It seems that Adrian would have been more understanding. I am surprised that Monk wasn`t afraid of elephants too. So, silly to one person is terrifing to another.