do you guys wash your hands after handling your snake

[ConcinusMan]

Like Shannon was saying, the risk of contracting something from just handling your snakes is astronomically low. Much lower than the risk of just eating raw vegetables from the store. However, if you do have some salmonella on your hands it can contaminate food. Then, once the salmonella has had a chance to reproduce and increase in numbers, then you eat the food, watch out. Garter feces do contain salmonella. Small numbers of the bacteria won't make you sick. What happens is, if enough of them multiply in food or water, it's their waste products that make you sick, rather than the salmonella itself. Therefore, swallowing a few of them won't do any harm. I think what happened to Shannon is that her kidneys were overwhelmed by the toxins excreted by the Salmonella, rather than the salmonella actually attacking her kidneys. Salmonella doesn't actually infect us. We just get sick from the toxins they excrete. This is why, even if you heat the contaminated food, and kill ALL the salmonella, the food will still make you sick. The toxins are still there.

One should wash their hands before AND after handling your snakes. And it's pretty much common sense to wash them before eating or handling food. That applies regardless of what you have handled.

[EasternGirl]

That's good Richard...exactly what I learned in nursing school. Bravo...endotoxins and exotoxins are the scary things..not so much the bacteria and viruses themselves. It's when those endotoxins and exotoxins get released into the bloodstream that you really have trouble.

[ConcinusMan]

I got extremely ill from salmonella once myself. Yeah, once in the blood, the toxins can do damage to organs, especially the kidneys. Luckily that didn't happen to me like it did to shannon. I apparently vomited (or otherwise evacuated violently) it all up before it could get into my bloodstream. Still, a downright horrible experience. It was years before I could bring myself to eat potato salad again.

[EasternGirl]

Yup...me too...Taco Bell...but like you it didn't go into the bloodstream. I actually got staphylococcus aureus food poisoning last year from seafood (for my birthday)...that was actually way worse than the salmonella that I had...I had to be rushed by ambulance to the ER...puking violently and the worst stomach pain I have ever felt...if someone had put a gun in my hand, I probably would have shot myself to end the misery.

[guidofatherof5]

Yup...me too...Taco Bell...but like you it didn't go into the bloodstream. I actually got staphylococcus aureus food poisoning last year from seafood (for my birthday)...that was actually way worse than the salmonella that I had...I had to be rushed by ambulance to the ER...puking violently and the worst stomach pain I have ever felt...if someone had put a gun in my hand, I probably would have shot myself to end the misery.

We are all glad no firearms were available.

[EasternGirl]

Thanks . It was really horrible though...the worst I have ever felt. Don't want to ever go through that again. I imagine it is what hell must be like.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Ever since that happened to me I have been much more Susceptible to UTI's. So much in fact that at one point I got three within 2 months and ended up having to see specialists and all kinds of crap. They could not figure out why i kept getting them and it wasnt even the same infection that kept coming back. They ultrasounded my kidneys... They looked in my bladder, they found nothing (at least i know i am healthy in those areas!) They had to put me on a 6 month long low dose of daily antibiotics to stop it from recurring... That did seem to help my body regain it's strength to fight things off... Still though especially with this pregnancy, I have to watch.... Luckily I know the earliest warning signs and all the preventatives and can usually fend one off before it actually sets in. Thank you salmonella for your contribution to my life!!! -.- not.I will say this much. Once, while field herping, I flipped a tired and discovered a pile of 5 huge gravid female garters all together. Wanting to have them all for a quick photo, I dove and managed to grab all of them. When I picked them up they of course all flipped out and all of them having fed heavily and being huge and gravid, flailed their tails around and literally flung poo EVERYWHERE and then it rained back down on me... Some even got into my mouth. I wasn't thrilled about that part but I came out of that incident unscathed. Eddie could not understand why I insisted he take pictures before I jumped into the shower of me covered in snake poop rain... I told him it's because it was a once in a lifetime event and yOu know you had a good day herping when you catch so many snakes it's rains poo!!!!

[zendragondrew]

Usually I wash my hands (my wife sounds like your mom, always making me wash my hands with the snake), but sometimes I don't. I don't wash my hands every time I pet the cat. Sort of a double standard, don't you think? The cat plays with its poop in the litter box and it's not necessary to wash my hands 100% of the time, but oh no if I touch the "slimy" snake

[EasternGirl]

Well the difference is the cat poop doesn't carry Salmonella...it carries toxoplasmosis...which isn't going to do anything to you but give you a little cold unless you have a compromised immune system or you're pregnant. You really don't want salmonella...read back a few posts. Better to be on the safe side and wash your hands after handling the snakes.

Funny story about the raining snake poo!

[PINJOHN]

Ever since that happened to me I have been much more Susceptible to UTI's. So much in fact that at one point I got three within 2 months and ended up having to see specialists and all kinds of crap. They could not figure out why i kept getting them and it wasnt even the same infection that kept coming back. They ultrasounded my kidneys... They looked in my bladder, they found nothing (at least i know i am healthy in those areas!) They had to put me on a 6 month long low dose of daily antibiotics to stop it from recurring... That did seem to help my body regain it's strength to fight things off... Still though especially with this pregnancy, I have to watch.... Luckily I know the earliest warning signs and all the preventatives and can usually fend one off before it actually sets in. Thank you salmonella for your contribution to my life!!! -.- not.I will say this much. Once, while field herping, I flipped a tired and discovered a pile of 5 huge gravid female garters all together. Wanting to have them all for a quick photo, I dove and managed to grab all of them. When I picked them up they of course all flipped out and all of them having fed heavily and being huge and gravid, flailed their tails around and literally flung poo EVERYWHERE and then it rained back down on me... Some even got into my mouth. I wasn't thrilled about that part but I came out of that incident unscathed. Eddie could not understand why I insisted he take pictures before I jumped into the shower of me covered in snake poop rain... I told him it's because it was a once in a lifetime event and yOu know you had a good day herping when you catch so many snakes it's rains poo!!!!

that's the lousiest excuse for having bad breath i have ever heard