text: 1. Don’t use Q-tips. Many patients get ear infections from removing the protective coating of earwax, or from scraping their ear canals in the process. As with the skin, just leave your ears alone.
  2. Don’t rub or touch your eyes. Bacteria and virus are often transmitted to the eyes via the hands causing conjunctivitis (pink eye) and respiratory infections. As with the ears, leave your eyes alone. Rubbing the eyes may cause tiny abrasions, allowing infection to invade.
  3. Don’t pop your pimples. Surely you know it only makes things worse. Although acne bacteria cause inflammation (not true infection), breaching the skin may allow staph and strep germs to invade, causing a true infection.
  4. Don’t touch your nose. Many microorganisms that cause colds, flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia are often transmitted to the nose via the hands.
  5. Avoid food and drink that leaves the mouth raw or inflamed, including hot liquids, spicy food, tobacco, and alcohol. Although this is more likely to cause uncomfortable inflammation than infection, viruses such as herpes are more likely to invade damaged skin and mucosal membranes.
  7. Cherish your stomach acid. With the increased use of acid-lowering drugs in recent years, there has been growing concern that gastrointestinal infections may increase. Hydrochloric acid is a potent sterilizing agent, killing off most germs that we ingest along with our food and drink. In 2010 it was demonstrated that clostridium difficile colitis organisms are more difficult to eradicate in patients taking strong acid-lowering medications.
  8. Avoid bubble baths or strong soaps in the genital areas, especially in little girls and women. The minor irritation this causes often leads to urinary infections. Drinking plenty of liquids and urinating frequently also helps flush the urinary system of bacteria.