With the improvement of health concept, many friends will prepare some basic medical supplies at home for emergencies. In the general concept of friends, cotton swabs are used for disinfection. Of course, some friends use them to pull out their ears, make-up and so on. However, what many friends don't know is that if the Cotton Swab is used incorrectly, it will have the opposite effect. I will use my experience to teach you how to use cotton swabs correctly.
1 usage of cotton swab
First of all, let me tell you the most basic use of cotton swabs: disinfection. Let's take skin disinfection as an example. We focus on the parts to be disinfected, rotate in one direction in front of us, and the diameter should be more than 5cm. A cotton swab can only be used once and cannot be recycled to avoid cross infection.
There is also a common function in front of us: pressing the wound. There are two pressing methods: one is ordinary pressing, which stops bleeding. Take subcutaneous injection (vaccination) and intramuscular injection (hip injection) as examples. The cotton swab can be pressed parallel to the wound.
Second, press longitudinally. Taking intravenous injection (mainly blood test) as an example, the injection method of general nurses is: enter the skin from the top or side of the vein, and then sneak into the vein along the vein. So generally, this kind of wound looks like one wound from the surface of the skin after the needle is pulled out, but you are actually two wounds. If the pressing method is incorrect, the skin color around the needle inlet will appear blue and purple. In fact, this is caused by congestion in your skin wound. If this happens, don't worry. The congestion will disperse by itself in about a week. At this time, your face should be pressed vertically along the vein, as shown in the figure:
Cotton swab pressing time. The pressing time of the cotton swab after pulling out the needle is also exquisite. Generally, people who are about 40 years old, have good coagulation function and have not taken anticoagulants for about five minutes. For people over 40 years old or who have taken anticoagulants, the pressing time should be about 10 minutes or more, depending on their personal situation.
Cotton swab pressing taboo. After pulling out the needle, the most taboo of cotton swab pressing is to press for two minutes to see if it will bleed. Generally speaking, if you press for less than five minutes, the wound will bleed. When you pick up a cotton swab from time to time, it will only cause congestion, blue and purple around your skin.
Finally, I hope that friends must standardize the use of cotton swabs in life and avoid unnecessary trouble. Hope to help you.
Medical Cotton Swab
2 precautions for using cotton swabs
1. Pay attention to the shelf life.
Hospital cotton swabs are mostly packed with double-layer paper. This kind of cotton swab is sterilized by high temperature and high pressure. In the unopened state, the shelf life is generally two weeks. In humid areas in the south, or rainy seasons in spring, the shelf life of cotton swabs is only about one week, because the paper is easy to be damp, which makes bacteria penetrate into the packaging.
2. Do not disinfect the wound with household cotton swabs.
The cotton swabs usually used by ordinary families are not many, and there is no condition to disinfect the cotton swabs for the remaining 24 hours after opening. Therefore, it is recommended that those cotton swabs be used as ordinary cosmetic cotton swabs or discarded. They should not be used for wound treatment, especially for infants.
Sterile cotton swabs are essential for skin disinfection. Once contaminated, the wound may be infected. Some people think that cotton swabs should be dipped in disinfectants such as alcohol and iodophor anyway, and some bacteria will not get in the way. They don't know that disinfection and sterilization are two different concepts. Disinfection is to kill pathogenic microorganisms on articles; Sterilization is the complete killing of all pathogenic and non pathogenic microorganisms on the article, including spores. Sterilization includes sterilization and cannot replace sterilization. In other words, although disinfectants such as alcohol and iodophor can kill pathogenic microorganisms, if the cotton swab is not sterile, but contains microorganisms such as spores, the disinfectant is powerless, and even the disinfectant will be contaminated. Therefore, sterile swabs are important measures to prevent infection.
3. It is important to keep cotton swabs.
When storing cotton swabs, the package shall be sealed. It shall also be noted that the cotton swabs shall be stored in a room with relative humidity less than 80%, no corrosive gas and good ventilation to avoid high temperature.
It is dangerous to use three cotton swabs multiple times.
The germicidal efficacy of liquid medicine contaminated with cotton swabs may also be greatly reduced. Dr. Jiao told you that every time you need to use disinfectant, you might as well pour enough disinfectant into another small container first, so that the whole bottle of disinfectant will not be polluted by one use.
In fact, it is not only the wrong method of use, but also the different use of these disinfectants by many people. According to Dr. Jiao, the bactericidal effect of Red Mercury lasts longer and is generally used when the skin is abraded.
However, red mercury has potential mercury poisoning risk due to its mercury content, so it is generally not used in major hospitals at present. It should be noted that red mercury should never be used with iodine containing preparations, otherwise the combination of the two will cause oxidation reaction and burn the skin.
Compared with alcohol, iodine has stronger bactericidal power, but due to its strong irritation, it will not cause skin trauma, such as boils. The use of iodine is also taboo. Infants and adults cannot use it on the face and scrotum. Alcohol is as irritating as iodine, but due to its short duration, it can also be used when there is a wound on the skin, but the bactericidal effect is poor.
Compared with the above three disinfectants, Dr. Jiao recommends that you use iodine and fluorine. Fluoride has the same bactericidal ability as iodine, but its permeability is less than iodine. Therefore, it is less harmful to the skin and safer to use. Iodine and fluoride can be used whether there are wounds on the skin or only small boils. It is reported that iodine and fluorine can be bought in pharmacies.
In addition, disinfectants should not be stored for too long. Experts suggest that family drugs should be packaged in small doses of 100 ~ 200 ml. After the potion is bought home, it must be sealed and stored in a cool place.
4. The harm of often using cotton swab to pull out the ear
Earwax not only prevents dust and dirt from entering the eardrum, but also provides additional antibacterial and lubricating effects. In addition, there are many magical places in the human body - in fact, your ears can clean automatically. After earwax is dry, every time you move your chin (whether it's lunch or talking nonsense to friends), it will help your ears remove old earwax (almost like taking an elevator).
The problem is that we always think we are much smarter than our physical functions, so we like to poke in our ears. Sure, cotton swabs look small, but their function is actually to push the wax deep into the ear to places where it cannot be cleaned automatically. Earwax is trapped deep, while fungi, bacteria and viruses accumulate in the outer ear, which can make us feel pain and infection. Pushing the wax deeper can also clog the ear holes and cause hearing problems. If you push the wax deeper and cause the eardrum to rupture, the pain is unspeakable.
When you really need to clean your ears, or when you go to see a doctor to clean them, that is, when you feel your ears are full of this pile of dirt, or when you feel too much earwax and hearing loss. Aao-hnsf thought it was time to remind people, so it issued an official statement and even set up a website about taking out ears with cotton swabs to discuss whether a well-known brand that recommended people to take out ears with cotton swabs was reliable.
In daily life, it is recommended that you do not often pull out your ears with a cotton swab, whether adults or children. This will have a certain impact on your hearing. It can be cleaned properly, but not too much.
Teach you how to remove nail polish with a cotton swab.
Step 1: take a cotton swab, hold the cotton swab with a pencil and apply nail wash. Remember to soak the cotton swab completely in nail washing water;
Step 2: remove the nail polish on the small nail, and wipe it back and forth from the root of the nail to the front edge of the nail with a cotton swab stained with nail oil and water;
Step 3: remove the nail polish left in the nail groove from the protective film of the nail skin to the nail along the nail groove;
Step 4: change a cotton swab and slowly remove the nail polish that has not been removed once.
Tips:
1: Just hold the cotton swab by holding the pen, which can better control the cotton swab;
2: Change a new cotton swab every time you wipe your nails;
3. removing nail polish with this method will be more time-consuming and labor-saving than other methods, but removing nail polish with a cotton swab can reduce the number of hand contact with chemicals, that is, reduce the injury to the opponent;
4: When wiping, be sure to soak the cotton swab in nail washing water. Because the cotton swab is thick, it is easier to clean nail polish only when it is soaked in nail washing water.
The method of removing nail polish with a cotton swab is very simple and easy to operate. This method is also healthy and suitable for use at home.
April 28, 2022
