help!!! where do i get alcohol prep pads NOW?

[DaMan]

I have roughly 10-12 more injections left but am out of alcohol prep pads... I even used up the ones in my car's first aid kit. I obviously don't have time to mailorder them anymore, and savon.com and riteaid.com don't seem to have them, so I'll assume the respective drugstores don't either.

Where can I go buy some tomorrow? I'd rather not resort to using rubbing alcohol + cotton balls because I'm really big on sterility and I dunno about those cotton balls...

 

[thx9000]

CVS or any other drug store, your grocery store.

 

[Zyglamail]

cotton balls and alcohol work as well.

 

[Torch]

cotton balls and alcohol work as well.

That is all I use

 

[gtaman]

Nearly every drug store has alcohol prep pads. Look near the bandaids. If one store doesn't have them another one will.

 

[JG1]

That is all I use

me too

 

[SofaGeorge]

Alcohol swabbing doesn't do anything. It is a myth. Doctors only do it to make patients believe they are disinfecting the area.

I've been booting for 20 years and haven't used a swab once.

 

[bbkingpin]

Alcohol swabbing doesn't do anything. It is a myth. Doctors only do it to make patients believe they are disinfecting the area.

I've been booting for 20 years and haven't used a swab once.

Just the same I would use alcohol. I've heard what you are saying somewhere before, but then I heard the opposite as well. I use alcohal on the vial and on the inj site. Use something: alcohol or hydrogen peroxide. Why take chances when pennies will buy you alcohol or hp?

 

[jboldman]

Interesting, alcohol skin prep does nothing? That it, Sofa? Based on what? For everyone else, please continue to prep using alcohol, I use the 91% but you do not have to use the higher concentration. Just to support this position here is a report from The journal of infection control and hospital epidemiology wherein it clearly states that alcohol prep is as effective as the other surgical preps used in the operating room, guess that is good enough for me!
==========================================
An In-Use Evaluation of an Alcohol-Based Pre-Surgical Hand Disinfectant
Elizabeth A. Bryce, MD, FRCP(C); Darlene Spence, RN; Frederick J. Roberts, MD, FRCP(C)
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether alcohol hand disinfection is an effective alternative to traditional agents for the pre-surgical scrub.

DESIGN
A prospective clinical trial of a 70% isopropanol pre-surgical hand disinfectant.

SETTING
The operating room suites at two hospital sites in British Columbia.

METHODS
Cases were selected to evaluate both short and longer procedures. The hand disinfectant was compared to agents in current use as surgical scrubs (4% chlorhexidine and 7.5% povidone-iodine). Surgical technique and glove use were not modified. Pre- and postoperative fingertip impression and “glove-juice” cultures were used to determine microbial burden, and hands were evaluated for skin integrity.

RESULTS
There was no statistical difference between the microbial hand counts following use of the alcohol-based product or the current agents, for cases less than 2 hours’ duration. Comparison of longer surgical cases revealed significantly better pre- and postoperative culture results with the alcohol hand rinse, but analysis of matched pairs showed no significant difference in microbial counts. The alcohol hand rinse was equivalent to the operative scrub in terms of skin integrity and user acceptability.

CONCLUSION
An alcohol hand rinse was equivalently effective in reducing microbial hand counts as the traditional pre-surgical scrub, both immediately after hand disinfection and at the end of the surgical procedure (Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2001;22:635-639).

Alcohol swabbing doesn't do anything. It is a myth. Doctors only do it to make patients believe they are disinfecting the area.

I've been booting for 20 years and haven't used a swab once.

 

[icelandic]

Alcohol swabbing doesn't do anything. It is a myth. Doctors only do it to make patients believe they are disinfecting the area.

Umm, no. It will significantly decrease surface bacteria and microbe levels. You would be shocked if you had any idea how much bacteria and other nasty bugs are floating around in every hospital, it is certainly not done to ease a patients mind.