This is no joke! Please read!

rcatr

Might seem a little alarmist but I always think better safe than sorry...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/health/03brod.html?src=me&ref=general

Samantharose8akaDebbie

Thanks for sharing..............and you are right, better safe than sorry.

kRpRpLgRl

I really can see this happening. My gym has handwash for everyone to use before, during, and after workouts. They also provide a towel for everyone to use and then it goes into a hamper after you are done with it. You never know what someone who works out before you might have. They could have something and not know it and be spreading it around everywhere.....or I could for that matter.:embarassed:

Thanks for sharing!!!:flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:

dianka93

Makes me question renewing my membership!

iwannawearatutu

Yikes... my father died of complications of MRSA last Fall, that article is practically enough to keep me from joining a gym at all. I guess I am adding a host of antibacterial items to my shopping list.

khskr1

Our neighbor ended up in the hospital with a staph infection because of his gym a few years ago. I not only wipe everything down, but I will lay my towel down as a barrier on benches too.

Dapo

Teach yourself how to become a germophobe & you will greatly reduce your chances of inheriting daily grungies.

sheyna1983

Thanks for posting this! Whenever people come in with prescriptions to treat MRSA they are always so clueless as to where they possibly picked up the infection......I wonder if any of them got it from their gyms? So scary

Nina74

NAsty. I always wipe down the machines before AND after I use them. will be even more viligant now!

rcatr

This article just made me want to be hyper vigilant about the whole thing.
Be safe everyone

dcturcotte

I always wipe the equipment after but now I think I'll start before too!

MzBug

These days it could be anywhere. In my area they had an out break at an elementary school (5 kids), they closed the school on a friday and cleaned and disinfected for 3 days. After that the day care centers, public library and playgrounds voluntarily did the same. When you think of all the things you touch during the day... door knobs, door handles on the cab, shopping carts, counters at the grocery store, post office, gas station, your spouse, your child.....

SuzanneRogers

Glad I workout at home. Gym always got my son sick in childcare so I cancelled my membership. Yeah for home gym equipment.

kizzyt

I caught impetigo in January and I am convinced it was from my gym. It was horrible, very painful and I had to have double strength antibiotics for two weeks to clear it, it made me feel really low. I am now left with a scar in the middle on my forehead (like Harry Potter, ha!) which I have been using Bio Oil on to reduce. Absolutely gutted and I am sure it came from the gym. I use my own towel but I guess holding onto the machines then wiping my forehead etc I could have easily come into (and probably did) something nasty

oats4breakfast

here's one for y'all. When you're wiping down the machines at the gym. Are you using that same towel to wipe youself ? Or to sit on ?
eeeeewwwwwww!!!!!

jheller

I just read this too - scary :noway: I spend more time in the gym in the winter (yea - lots of germs then!!) so I don't think I'll skimp on the cleaning fluid any more

TrainingWithTonya

This is why my gym has sanitizer wipe stations (looks like an upside down papertowel dispenser, but the towels are soaked with sanitizer) and requires everyone to wipe down the equipment after use. We're also required to carry a sweat towel (and use it) in order to even step foot on the exercise floor. On top of that, I carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer on my lanyard around my neck (wallet, keys, hand sanitizer) and use it regularly. I've been in the gym business for 14 years and an avid member before that and have never gotten a skin infection from there. But I'm a germaphobe who literally had to wash my hands like 20 times between making mud pies as a child, so maybe it's just my overuse of antimicrobial products. LOL

Panda86

Wow, scary. I don't go to the gym, I do home workouts. But I went to my Mom's with her once, and it was crazy how much they make you wipe stuff down- but I was glad. I am a germaphobe, too :P

fkhdad

Hi everyone. Yes, infections, particularly MRSA are bad news. It is said that over 50% of us carry MRSA in our nose and it never affects us unless our immune system is compromised. I am intimately familiar as MRSA killed my 87 year old father over a 3 year period. He had been on dialysis for over 10 years when he passed. This process and the failure of the kidney's are known to compromise your immune system and the circulation in your extremities, similar to diabetes.

The bottom line: yes, this is a potentially serious exposure we all live with on a daily basis, so are bad people and drunks driving cars. You can't live your life as a hermit. The best thing you can do is use reasonable caution and clean your hands and yourself regularly. If more people were better about washing their hands several times a day, the exposure for everyone would be lessened substantially. So live your life, clean your hands and seek treatment promptly if something unusual pops up on your skin. Remember, they are "Resistant" infections, but so far they are still curable if you are in reasonable health. Hope this helps!

Becky_Boop

Well this explains why I am always picking up stomach bugs, coughs and colds from the gym! (I'm just glad I've not got anything worse)

I'm normally quite good with my hygene while i'm there, I wash my hands before, take a clean towel, wipe down machines before and after use (not just the obvious bits but the buttons, the bottle holders too). I use hand sanitiser for between machines and I wash my hands and change my socks before I leave (I walk 4 miles home, I shower then).

I guess the problem is that no matter how good your own habbits are, you can't control other peoples. I think I get ill while using the machines, I mean, even though I have wiped it down after a while I'm just moving the same germs around the gym with my towel, and all it takes is for me to touch the machine and then my face, or wipe my brow with the towel and BOOM, i've caught something because someone else didn't wipe a machine, or wash their hands (eww).

Skinnytime

Ditto Suzanne. I work out at home now as well. My kids were always sick from the child care room and I was always getting something also.

And, as an early elementary school teacher, I have pretty good resistance to getting sick.....

SaveTheDrama

Just another reason I am glad I have a gym set up in my own home!

HealthyChanges2010

Might seem a little alarmist but I always think better safe than sorry...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/health/03brod.html?src=me&ref=general

Am I the only one that gets a NY times subscription box that pops up and asks for you to subscribe or sign in?

rcatr

man. i can't wait for the day i have the funds and the room! to set up my own gym in the house!

Azdak

I think you also have to keep this in perspective. First of all, you are exposed to many of the same germs whenever you do out in public. Unless you want to be like Howard Hughes or the boy in the bubble, you have to go out in the big world sometimes.

Secondly, for all the data reported in the story, given the tens of millions of gym visits that occur each year, the number of infections is still relatively small.

Obviously, it's something that we all want to be aware of, and you want to improve your odds, but I also think obsessing about it can be just as bad.

I work in a fitness center and have the unenviable task of picking up after all the privileged little yuppie larvae who think I am paid to be their cabana boy. As a staff, we debate amongst ourselves whether or not to wear gloves when picking up used towels. It's impractical to do so for every single towel--I will wear them when cleaning up after a large group in the gym, but use the "fingertip pinch" method when doing routine pickups on the fitness floor--and liberal use of the hand sanitizer.

Our members are very good about wiping down the cardio machines after they are finished, but not so much with the strength. I am always amazed at guys who would never dream of walking away from a dripping treadmill, but who don't think twice about leaving greasy, sweaty "head stains" on the pads of the strength equipment.

cparter

The issue at hand is preventions that are readily available in most gyms today. If your gym does not have hand santitizer and disinfectants to pray before and after you are done choose another gym.

There is no use in spreading fear about gyms when you can remind people to be wise when they go. Now we have people here trying to remove the bulge with one less outlet because of the fear of catching MRSA which is not that high of an occurence. When you look at 1 out 1k to 2k people catch it at the gym is that a high percentage? No. If you follow the common sense practices you will be protected in most cases. Heck when you take a dump do you wash your hands or just leave the bathroom. If you are the one who just leaves you are probably the one who do not want to go the gym because you are not conscious enough of others or yourself.

Other than that. Choose as you will but do not shut the door so quickly before you reassess where you are, where you are going and see if that risk can be minimized.

Stay strong and live long.

Carlos

questionablemethods

With the exception of public bathrooms, I am totally NOT a germ-a-phobe -- almost to the point of being too cavalier about the prospect of infections. I suppose I should work on that.

hill242

With the exception of public bathrooms, I am totally NOT a germ-a-phobe -- almost to the point of being too cavalier about the prospect of infections. I suppose I should work on that.

Ironically, the keyboard in front of you is probably more germ-infested than a regularly cleaned public bathroom.

aippolito1

I work at a bank and come in contact with lots of germs!! I use my hand sanitizer anytime I take anything from a customer, touch the money in my drawer, handle tickets, etc. and of course before I eat. I try to wash my hands every hour or so as well.

naturebaby

I think you also have to keep this in perspective. First of all, you are exposed to many of the same germs whenever you do out in public. Unless you want to be like Howard Hughes or the boy in the bubble, you have to go out in the big world sometimes.

Secondly, for all the data reported in the story, given the tens of millions of gym visits that occur each year, the number of infections is still relatively small.

Obviously, it's something that we all want to be aware of, and you want to improve your odds, but I also think obsessing about it can be just as bad.

I work in a fitness center and have the unenviable task of picking up after all the privileged little yuppie larvae who think I am paid to be their cabana boy. As a staff, we debate amongst ourselves whether or not to wear gloves when picking up used towels. It's impractical to do so for every single towel--I will wear them when cleaning up after a large group in the gym, but use the "fingertip pinch" method when doing routine pickups on the fitness floor--and liberal use of the hand sanitizer.

Our members are very good about wiping down the cardio machines after they are finished, but not so much with the strength. I am always amazed at guys who would never dream of walking away from a dripping treadmill, but who don't think twice about leaving greasy, sweaty "head stains" on the pads of the strength equipment.

Wow! Are we just a little resentful and in need of moving on to a place of happy??

thumper44

Ironically, the keyboard in front of you is probably more germ-infested than a regularly cleaned public bathroom.

So true. I just remembered a Mythbusters episode. A light switch is really bad as well.
I just got the details from a website.


Many objects that people touch every day are dirtier than a toilet seat.
confirmed

Adam and Jamie chose a total of 8 objects to test for cleanliness: toilet seat, money, kitchen sponge, hotel room remote, computer keyboard, light switch, cell phone, and shopping cart. They swabbed each surface for 10 seconds and created Petri dishes from the swabs that incubated overnight. Their first method of measurement was to count the number of microorganism colonies on each dish. They found that the toilet seat sample actually had the fewest colonies, while the kitchen sponge sample had more than they could count:

kitchen sponge (most colonies)
money
light switch
computer keyboard
hotel remote
shopping cart
cell phone
toilet seat (fewest colonies)

However, they always wanted to account for the “nastiness” or harmfulness of the types of organisms on each Petri dish, so they had a microbiologist re-rank the samples. The list was as follows.

kitchen sponge (most nasty)
money
light switch
computer keyboard
toilet seat
cell phone
shopping cart
hotel remote (least nasty)
Finally, Adam and Jamie decided they needed a larger sample size to provide better results. They enlisted a group of biology students at UC Berkeley to collect more samples from the top five dirtiest surfaces. After collecting and analyzing these samples, the final list was as follows.

kitchen sponge (most dirty)
money
computer keyboard
toilet seat
light switch (least dirty)