Flushing with the can lid open can make you sick

Post Reply New Topic

better to be on the safe side and steep in poo particle and bleach solutions on a rotating basis

i'm assuming you have dental qualifications and shall take heed at once, *to the bathroom*

Frankly, your toothbrush is going to have far more bacteria on it coming out of your mouth than anything that it is going to accumulate from the Krakatoa-like eruptions of your lidless flushes.

i've known this for ages. i was really freaked out when i first heard it. it's why i started putting the lid down and holding my breath in public loos. otherwise it's like im breathing in crap and walking through crap vapours and that sounds so much grosser than it is in real life when you write it like that. oh this disturbs me so very very much. im gonna go home and bleach my things now.

It adds to what's already going to be there, unless you use a new toothbrush every time you brush.

People have been flushing with the lid up and reusing their toothbrushes until they wear out for a long time now. And we don't have epidemics of C. difficile, E. coli and fecal coliform infections in the general population.

Where do we have these outbreaks? We have them in hospitals where he concentration of sick people is high, where a larger percentage of people are immune compromised and where there are many vectors for trasmission of pathogens from one patient to another.

There is absolutely no reason for a healthy person to take steps in their homes beyond straightforward cleanliness.

I wonder if those patients leave the lid down?

I suspect you will find most hospital toilets are lidless.

Correlation?

Perhaps--but certainly not causation.

There are two things you need for infection: a sufficiently high concentration of the pathogen in question, and a vector for transmission.

Hospitals present much higher concentrations of pathogens in the form of the patients who are already infected with them, and much more effecient vectors. Like doctors, nurses and improperly sterilized instruments.

It also bears noting that by putting lids on the toilets, you are giving the water and the pathogens a place to settle--potentially increasing their concentration. Pathogens in the air will tend to get disappated through normal air circulation. But by putting the lid down, you are potentially increasing the concentration of them on the lid with every flush--making the matter worse, not better.

Here's an experiment for a budding microbiology student: swab the underside of your toilet seat (both the ring and the lid) and culture them. Leave the seat up for a week, and repeat. Then leave the seat down for a week and repeat. Compare the populations in the cultures and see that you get.

Meh... but brushing my teeth that way just won't be the same and the five pounds of yeast in my gut might get lonely.

Five pounds seems like a lot, maybe they need to go on a diet

Having had C. diff in the past - I'm going to take the advice and flush with the lid down from now on.