any suggestions?

Wash your hands?

Don't use your mouth to clean your chips?

wear gloves

Carry a bottle of purell

1. Stop Crying
2. Clean sand out of vag
3. Go to therapist for OCD

4. Rinse and repeat

I disagree that it's OCD to worry about this. Those chips are nasty dirty. I read an article about a lab that tested casino chips, and they found substantial amounts of wonderful things like snot, feces, and urine on the chips.

What do you do about it? Basically, use common sense and otherwise don't worry too much. Common sense to me means:

- Don't eat at the table
- Don't touch your mouth and nose
- Wash your hands when it's reasonable, and definitely don't eat before washing well.

Handling chips in a casino is kinda like running your hands on the floor of the mens room. It's not likely to kill you, but... I don't understand how people eat finger food at the poker table.

The casino I frequent has alcohol dispensers in the poker room to disinfect your hands, look for those, if your casino doesn't have them, request them.

I disagree that it is not OCD if you worry about this. If you are getting sick all the time after you come back from the casino then you might have a case, but worring about getting sick from things that are not making you sick is pretty crazy. I eat all the time at the poker table and I never get sick from it.

There is nothing wrong with trying to be clean, but there is a line you can cross when you worry about stuff like this too much.

The average person, whether germophobic or not, has no idea just how many and what types of germs they are bombarded by on a daily basis. Being excessively worried about it is wasted energy. Even the cleanest germophobe is exposed to the same bugs as the biggest slob around, and the quantitative difference is surprisingly SMALL. So you can either obsess to excess, or not.

There's lots of real stuff to worry about. Aliens. Government conspiracies. The chupacabra. Country music. Lake monsters. Rising beer prices. Those things crawling under my skin. Don't you waste time worrying about silly stuff.

al

OCD or not, my biggest pet peeve is poker players using the bathrooms then rushing out not washing their hands.

Eat your vegetables.

Germs are myth created by corporations to sell us more soap. Seriously, invisible “bugs” crawling around making people sick. Ridiculous, trust me you have nothing to worry about.

Editted for truthiness.

-----------------

Okay, that's scary. I didn't even see that this thread had a poster by that name

You've seen Knocked Up, right? Nobody wants pink eye...

this

OP: Don't play at the Taj

/thread

Chips at the Borg are just as bad. They're just shinier so you don't think about it as much.

Anyway, if you think the chips are bad just imagine the massage therapists... they just spent 15 minutes rubbing a poker players back before they got to you... (btw, I still say you're nuts Chris)

Don't take antibiotics for everything under the sun......

People who run to the doctor for every little thing eat antibiotics over and over........let your immune system fight the stuff off like it's supposed to....

Use common sense, wash hands don't touch eyes, nose mouth etc...

Don't touch your mouth, nose or eyes without washing your hands when at a casino. And of course, don't eat with unwashed hands.

No offense to anyone but several people in this thread apparently could benefit from an introductory course in biology and by fooling around with something called a Petri Dish.

Germs in places heavily frequented by the public are numerous and of wide variety. Some varieties are quite dangerous. Other varieties may be innocuous, or just give you a common cold, flu, or pink eye - but who wants those things?

OCD and germophobia have nothing to do with what I'm saying. If you are not somewhat afraid and respectful of germs in public places, you are simply ignorant or you don't mind playing in traffic.

People get staph infections FROM hospitals. Even with all the sanitary procedures in hospitals, a great many people today come out with infections they didn't have when they went in. Some of these infections are extremely harmful and dangerous. In hospitals that revised their staff's hand-washing procedures to be far more frequent, patient infections dropped immensely. The time frame is the last decade or two. Staph infections are on the rise due to antibiotic-resistant "superbugs".

The amount of germs you are exposed to matters. If you get a lot of one bad type of germ you can get sick even if you wouldn't have gotten sick had you gotten less of that same germ type. Your body's immune system can handle some types of germs but not others, and can handle limited some amounts of certain germs. It can't handle unlimited types or unlimited amounts. Casinos and public places like airports are immense germ breeding farms.

I got colds, flus more often in Vegas than anywhere I've ever been, and even got pink eye there once too (the only place I've ever gotten it). Vegas is a nexus where world travelers meet and spread germs.

In my disgust at people leaving stalls without washing, I've often imagined that casino security should throw out anyone who leaves the bathroom after using the stall without washing their hands. 30-day barring first offense, lifetime second. It's a pretty lousy thing to do to people you come in contact with. The urinal is one thing but stall is much more dangerous (washing before and after urinal is good, but the stall is like a whole different planet). Stall: studies show it takes at least 8 sheets of paper to prevent germ-laden liquid from seeping through the paper and getting on the hands. E. coli is dangerous. Hepatitis is dangerous. Lots of germs are dangerous.

Please don't expose others to your germs. You might have acquired some hepatitis or serious flu germs from someone recently, and you may be able to spread them even if you aren't feeling sick yet. You might not even get sick from them but you can still cause someone else to get sick. The earlier stages of flu or cold infection are spread to others more easily. The late stages of a flu or cold are not as likely to infect someone else.

Germs enter through the eyes too, so watch your eyes, nose and mouth. If someone sneezes and a few droplets hit you in the eye you may catch the flu or a cold or whatever if they have it. If you handle a poker chip with bad germs on it, then touch your eye, you could get a cold or pink eye (or even possibly worse).

This is all just scientific and medical fact. Ignore it at your peril. And whoever you are, please don't be an absolute ******* and spread germs to others because you are too lazy to wash your hands.

If you wish, get a Petri dish and microscope and watch germs grow, and look at them closely. A bit of saliva or whatever will create quite a colony. A lot of germs are not your friend so don't carelessly let them into your body. These little guys create poisons and do other things, many of them not in your favor. They grow like wildfire under the right conditions.

When you are getting sleep-deprived, your body's immune system gets weaker. Your immune systen can also get overworked and stop functioning very well. Exposure to too many germs and too many germ types in a short period can overwork your immune system.

I'm not trying to preach, I'm just telling you like it is. Germs are serious stuff. Please take them seriously. It's a serious thing when you get a really bad flu, isn't it? Germs don't fool around, so don't fool around with them.

Well, thanks for reading.

"The average person, whether germophobic or not, has no idea just how many and what types of germs they are bombarded by on a daily basis. Being excessively worried about it is wasted energy. Even the cleanest germophobe is exposed to the same bugs as the biggest slob around, and the quantitative difference is surprisingly SMALL. So you can either obsess to excess, or not."

Publicly-encountered germs generally enter through the openings in your face: mouth, nose and eyes. Washing your hands before touching your face, and before putting anything into your mouth or nose (food, gum, kleenex) is a very good idea. It's not a matter of compulsive worry, it's just the simplest and smartest thing you can do to protect yourself when out in public.

Back?

This depends where you go for your massage!!

You are right to be concerned.
Wash your hands on the way into the restroom and on the way out.
Wash your hands before you smoke.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Don't rub your eyes.

I wash before since I worry far more about the slime from the chips being transfered to my Johnson than the other way around given Mr. J is about the most washed part of my body next to my hands.

I wash my hands after just to follow custom and be courteous .

~ Rick