Washing your dishes and equip

[CFTwins]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some tips on keeping my kids' equipment (nebulizer, bottles, toys) free from pseud growth. My daughter showed up with trace amounts of pseudonomous this month and now is on TOBI. I feel like we've been careful, but we do struggle with the best ways to keep everything clean and dry. For example, do you sterilize your bottles before using? Do you use the dishwasher or something else? How do you actually get bottles to dry? Hairdryers? What about drying racks or towels for bottles and equip? What about med. syringes (for oral antibiotics)? As soon as those dry they don't work anymore. All tips are appreciated!

I've asked my clinic and checked the CF Foundation website and gotten a few ideas, but need some more. Links are helpful too. THANKS!

Stacy

 

[Alyssa]

Well.... my babies are 17 and 19 years old so we only wash nebs around here. We have a few items that are stored in drawer by themselves -- tongs, plastic box thing with a lid, plastic strainer. These things never get used for anything besides cleaning nebs.

We wash the nebs in the plastic box thing (with a swing up/down lid) with hot water and soap. Then we boil them for 10 minutes. We then pour them into the strainer and pluck them out with the tongs into clean paper towels - back into the plastic box (close the lid) shake around for a minute, then take them out (with tongs) and put them into a basket lined with another clean, dry paper towel to air dry.

The thing that helped us out the most was getting 7 nebs (I cannot believe we started with only one! it was such a pain) Now with 7 of them we only have to wash and boil once a week.

 

[Alyssa]

I forgot, one more thing that the CF nurse has always stressed to all the patients is that psuedomonas is a "water bug" it likes to hang out around damp/wet sinks and such -- the thing you have to be most careful with is making sure the neb cups don't sit with water pooling in them. I have always been told "air dry, cup facing up"

 

[Alyssa]

Stacy,
I think I saw on one of your other posts that only one girl has tested positive for psuedomonas? right?

Did your doctor tell you about the precautions you should take to hopefully keep the other one from getting psuedo?

Pretty much the same rules you would follow when trying not the catch a cold from someone... like don't share drinks, food, etc -- be careful to separate tooth brushes -- we even make sure they use different toothpaste tubes.

My daughter has tested positive once and my son has not.

 

[anonymous]

Hi Stacy, for the bottles, have you tried a bottle rack? I got one from Babies R Us for about $3 and it is great! It is basically a flat piece of plastic with a bunch of long pegs that the bottles sit on. I run mine through the dishwasher (sanitize cycle) then put them on the bottle rack until they are completely dried out. For the neb equipment, I let the nebs dry on a piece of paper towel covered by another piece of paper towel. For the syringes, I let them dry in the regular dish drainer (plastic thingie that sets next to my sink for the plastic things that don't dry completely in the dishwasher.). I also clean the dish drainer and bottle rack regularly bc water does sit on them from time to time.

Hope your daughter doesn't culture PA again next time. Who knows how she got it, but I don't blame you for wanting to take these extra precautions - been there still do that!

HTH,
Kelli (mom of Sydney 2wcf)

 

[babyjaden2004]

My daughter tested postive for it last week and I have been a freak about germs now. I dry her neb on a paper towel covered with another one, I boil it for 10 mintues. When I was dishes which contain her bottles and such I adda tiny bit of bleach to the water, always have, and I boil all her stuff every week.

 

[anonymous]

We also boil everything and/or use bleach. I also run a cycle of hot water and a cup of bleach through the dishwasher periodically (no dishes in it and then follow with an extra rinse cycle on super hot.) Incidentally, I also do that for my washing machine, too, just to clean it out.

 

[anonymous]

Hello,

Regarding the bottles we run Bennett's through the dishwasher. We use the Airvent bottles. They can be taken apart completely and they dries just fine. I never put anything away that is still wet after coming out of the dishwasher. I always have a bunch of items air drying on a paper towel on the counter. Also, I never use a towel in the kitchen and never a sponge on any of bennett's items. I go through alot of paper towels but I think it is cleaner than using a towel/sponge.

One more thing, I removed all hand towels from my bathrooms. We use paper towels to dry hands after washing.

And double check to make sure your dishwasher hot water is at an acceptable temperature to kill bacteria. I took a meat themo and ran it throught mine to make sure the water was hot enough.

We are not on any inhaled treatments yet.

Good luck. Paula

 

[CFTwins]

THANKS EVERYONE! Some new ideas in the bunch. When you boil in water for 10 min. do you ever end up with white powder on stuff?

Stacy

 

[Alyssa]

No, I've never seen any white stuff after boiling. Are you washing the items first?

The above advice about no hand towels in the bathroom is somthing we also did away with after my daughter tested positive for PA. Don't know if that's why she got it but she thought it couldn't be good to hold a damp towel up to her mouth after brushing her teeth.

I bought 3 dozen wash clothes and she uses one each time she washes her hands or wipes off her face -- figured in the long run it was cheaper than using more paper towels -- we do still use the paper towels for drying nebs.

 

[anonymous]

you could just try a steam steriliser instead that way they can air dry but they do have to be used within a few hours though

 

[IG]

Off topic... kinda, On the pari-nebs which I know you can boil what's the recommened time for that, 5 minutes? 10 minutes? And the little blue things that hook onto the neb, can those be boiled as well?

 

[anonymous]

there is no evidence in what i am about to say...but I think the white powder is from the minerals in the water. I think the harder the water, the more residue there will be. I contacted pari regarding this and the bimbo that answered the phone said "oh, i don't know what that could be". When I run them through the dishwasher, no powder appears (i think that the heat cycle fries it off). I am interested in what this is also! I don't want to be blowing more stuff into my little guys lungs!!

 

[anonymous]

My guess is that it's the minerals too. I was going to try boiling in the microwave to see if I got the same thing. I am thinking maybe it is the minerals reacting with the metal. Do you boil every time you use your nebulizer? And do you boil the mask?

Thanks! -- Not signed in now... Stacy (Maren and Berne's Mom)

 

[anonymous]

We have really hard water and sometimes get a white residue on the pari neb cups. So what I'll do is soak the parts in Vinegar to get rid of the calcium deposits, then wash them in soapy water like I usually do and then I'll boil them for 10 minutes like I usually do. Vinegar takes care of the deposits. Kinda cool like science project.