[Question #13548] Am I at risk?
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1 months ago
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I really don’t know if I should even be worried about this or not.
I babysit a young child. I was sitting on the couch with her and she was sucking her thumb, she does get cold sores, but did not have one at the time of this incident. I was sitting in the couch with my legs and bottom of my feet facing her. She grabbed my foot and I felt saliva from her thumb on the upper part of the bottom of my foot. I washed the bottom of my foot with a face wash within a couple of minutes.
I’m concerned because I don’t have HSV1 or 2 and I use a scrubber on my feet every night in the shower. I didn’t see any cuts or wounds on my feet. I’m worried I could have micro tears/cuts on the bottom of my feet from using the scrubber and she was shedding and had virus in her saliva, that it could give me HSV1 on the bottom of my foot.
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Terri Warren, RN, Nurse Practitioner
1 months ago
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I don't believe there is any risk here of you getting HSV from this child. First, she did not have a cold sore at the time. Second, the skin on the bottom of your foot is thick and even if you had a microscopic break in the skin on your foot from scrubbing, the likelihood that she would have enough virus in her saliva to somehow make it to that exact location of the break and infect your foot is just too remote to be possible. Third, you washed your foot and soap destroys the lipid layer that surrounds the virus, destroying it.
Terri
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1 months ago
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Thank you!
I admit that I do have some pretty health anxiety in general.
I also get concerned about HSV on surfaces and inanimate objects. I see so much conflicting information online. Some say the virus becomes non infectious after a few minutes and some say it can last for 8 weeks and still be infectious. How long would you think that HSV would be infectious on surfaces and inanimate objects?
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1 months ago
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I’m sorry I also thought of something else in addition to my previous question if you wouldn’t mind answering both.
A little over a month ago, I was eating a sno cone and let my dad have a bite, he does get cold sores. I can’t remember if he had a cold sore or not at the time because I wasn’t paying attention. I then dipped the spoon back into the sno cone and took a bite. Should I be worried about this, or would the cold temperature of the sno cone help in making the virus non infectious? I never developed any symptoms.
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Terri Warren, RN, Nurse Practitioner
1 months ago
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There is mixed information about inanimate objects, yes. There are some factors to think about when worrying about transmission.
1. There has to be enough virus present to infect someone - that's not one copy of the virus, that's millions.
2. The surface has to be warm, like human body temp, or the virus will die
3. There has to be a vulnerable part of the body that comes into contact with the virus - hands aren't vulnerable, legs aren't vulnerable. Genitals and mouths are vulnerable.
All of these factors have to be at play for even the possibility of transmission to be present.
The snow cone presents no risk at all
Terri
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