mistoferin
Posts: 8284
Joined: 10/27/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MsSaskia
quote:
ORIGINAL: Abraxus
To be honest, poor technique, you really should have two. However, what I found when working with these beads is that they were too small so I decided that I would use the best means possible to complete the task with being as safe as possible. My right hand I cleaned with Betadine and allowed to dry before touching the beads and limited the contact with the suture as much as possible. In normal settings I would have been using properly fitted gloves and in the future we will use larger beads. Keep in mind that this is a clean technique being used and not sterile.
I've been watching a lot of National Geographic's Taboo over the past couple of months. I keep seeing all these blood rituals in various cultures that have been going on for centuries or longer. Skin hooks, scarifications, circumcisions, etc. Not a single glove, bottle of Technicare, Hibiclens towellette or the like in sight anywhere. I'm part of a group in my city that does a lot of blood play and some of us can get pretty sniffy about our rituals and whether we're each following dictates precisely ("Oh! I see you're only doing one layer of skin prep. Gosh!"), which can get a little old. A friend of mine who's a curandera (Native American healer) as well as a nurse in a hospital says she's done thousands of piercings with antlers, various claws, slivers of wood and so on and uses none of what's considered necessary for skin prep, equipment sterilization or wound care in Western medicine, and has never had any wounds she's created become infected. She says the only time she ever wears gloves during a ritual is when she knows she's working with someone who's HIV+ or has HepC. She came and talked to our group - my request, since I thought some cultural perspective might be interesting and informative - the other night and I know my jaw was dropping.
Leaving a glove off for part of a procedure is definitely not going to cause maiming, dismemberment, horrors or death. 
Thank you MsSaskia for responding.
I'd like to clarify a few things for the masses. I was completely comfortable with his technique and I do not feel that he was putting me at risk by it. The beading, as I said before, was done rather impromptu and he took every precaution that was available. The gloves that we had at our disposal were an imperfect fit and he could not grasp the beads with the hand he needed, so he took that glove off. He thoroughly cleansed and prepared both the site and his hands. At one point I even got scolded because my hair touched the site and contaminated it, having to re-cleanse it.
I would also like to point out that I am old enough to remember the days before AIDS where there were virtually no medical professionals who ever donned a glove before they stuck a needle in you. Those gloves that are in that box in the doctor's office are NOT sterile and the purpose for their use is not for YOUR protection as much as it is for the protection of the medical professional wearing them from your blood.
If anyone was at a higher risk from his decision not to wear that glove, it was him. As for risk of infection, as I said his preperation of both the site and his hands beforehand limited any possibility of that to a point that I was completely comfortable with any minute risk. Master Sage also checked the site several times a day after the beading up until the moment they were removed and several times a day for the days following their removal for any signs of infection.
I believe that many people are of the belief that piercing must be done under "sterile" conditions and that is simply not true. They don't even do it that way at your doctor's. There is a difference between "sterile" and "asceptic".
I believe the "risk" in this situation was minimal. In this lifestyle there are many risks that we have to decide for ourselves if we will accept.
_____________________________
Peace and light,
~erin~
There are no victims here...only volunteers.
When you make a habit of playing on the tracks, you thereby forfeit the right to bitch when you get hit by a train.
"I did it! I admit it and I'm gonna do it again!"
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