I think my answers are going to be much the same as everyone else's on this and I wish you all the best with your treatment


Do you wash your hands everytime you touch your cat/s? No. I'd spend all day in the bathroom if I did

Have you ever got ill from being with your cat/s? No

How often do you wash your hands after stroking your cat/s? Not at all normally but wash before preparing food anyway, cats or not

Do you wash your hands after touching things you know your cat/s have been on? No, only when cleaning the litter tray. I do wipe down kitchen surfaces before preparing food

How often do you stroke your cat/s daily? Very frequently

If your cat/s touches your clothes/skin/bed how do you respond? They sleep in my bed often. I'm happy for them to be wherever they want to be. I'm constantly covered in cat hair Funnily enough though one of them doesn't like to lie on bare skin.

And do you have an indoor or outdoor cat? Both indoor cats but that wouldn't make any difference to my attitude

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How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven. - Robert A. Heinlein
http://www.lambchopsiamese.webs.com

Good luck with your OCD. I'm sure you can overcome it

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My babies
Aber, Ragnar, Kelso (the corgi trio), Daisy (our rescue mystery-mix puppy), Ellie, Henry, Gwennie, Jezebel (the kitty quartet), Blake, Chaucer, Molly and Milton (the kittens), and Bingo the African Grey parrot

Over the Bridge:
Pippin: 1/6/08-17/5/11
Freja: 11/8/10-30/10/10
Kirby: 11/8/10-1/11/10

"Praise liberty/The freedom to obey/It's a song that strangles me/Well, don't cross the line" Billie Joe Armstrong

Food for thought:

being too hygienic is bad for you.In order for your immune system to be functional, it needs regular training. Your immune system needs to learn to combat enemies, and it needs to train on a regular basis, on relatively mild infections. Otherwise, it will be totally out of shape when it DOES encounter a serious threat and will not even be able to lift a finger.

It is like running. If you never train, you will never run a marathon. And when you try, you drop dead within a mile, whereas if you had trained on a regular basis, you could easily have made it.

As a child, I was never ill, and I swapped (half eaten) sweets and gum with friends, put my fingers in my mouth after digging in the sand and after cuddling cats and dogs, and even ducks and chickens. I picked up sweets from the floor and ate them, and I must have lied to my mom so many times when I told her I HAD washed my hands with soap before dinner.....

We are constantly being bombarded by enemy cells from outside. But our body was made to defend itself, and on the whole, it is doing so EXTREMELY well. Only, we will have to keep in training, we need to encounter enough mild infections our body has no problem with, whartsoever, for our immune system to keep in practice.

So if you stop being too finnicky about germs and allow your body to do its job and stay in shape, serious infections will be much less of a threat to you.

I am sufering from pneumonia right now, due to severe stress and exhaustion after years of being understaffed, so I did not get the time to get over the death of my parents. Then, on X-mas day my MIL died, and on January 5th, one of my best friends suffered a severe heart attack and was at death's door for over 10 days. That is when an in fection finally got a chance to strike. But my immune system was combatting it very well, I had so few symptoms it needed an X-ray to really prove the infection.

I work in a hospital laboratory, so I am obliged to wash my hands a hundred times a day, but outside the lab, I am as sloppy with hygiene as I dare be. I am very finnicky as far as buying, preparing and consuming food is concerned, and when cleaning toilets (cat or human).

But do I wash my hands after shaking people's hand, taking money, touching doorknobs, telephones, keyboards etc....... Do I worry about being on trains, buses, undergrounds with loads of people who may be spreading germs?
No way.

Be welcome, germs, and make me stronger!!!!!!!
A lot of people with a less well-trained immune system than mine would have been far sicker from that pneumonia than I am, even though I am asthmatic.

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Jiskefet & the mognificent Dutch bunch

My little angels at the rainbow bridge

My answers are the same as everyone elses, I wash my hands every time I touch a litter tray and before I prepare anyones food or eat. We have many indoor cats and one who goes outdoor, but I feel they are all clean and love stroking them.

My three children have grown up with the cats all around them, whilst I wash my hands before eating there is no way the children do every time. My 8 year old and 5 year old have never had antibiotics and I put this down to a moderate veiw of hygiene, the cats/kittens sleep on their beds. My older daughter had antibiotics a couple of times before she was 3 years old, but since I have been breeding she too hasn't had a prescription.

I am obsessional about washing down the counters with spray and do so a lot of times, more than I need to, but we do have young cats who go up on the counters. I do sometimes find myself washing my hands when I've just watched a cat come out of the litter tray and I've not actually touched it.

Cats are clean though and touching them will do no harm, it is good for you and them to stoke a sleeping cat. I wish you all the best with your treatment and good for you for dealing with it.

Do you wash your hands everytime you touch your cat/s?
Nope

Have you ever got ill from being with your cat/s?
I do have a mild allergy to them but other than that nope.

How often do you wash your hands after stroking your cat/s?
I dont unless they have something disgusting on them


Do you wash your hands after touching things you know your cat/s have been on?
Nope

How often do you stroke your cat/s daily?
Whenever they are near me, couldnt give a number

If your cat/s touches your clothes/skin/bed how do you respond?
With a groan and a grin when I realise the cat is sleeping on my clean washing pile that I still havent moved. I love them touching my skin because they are so soft and will often put my head on them and rub them with my cheek.

And do you have an indoor or outdoor cat?
They are mostly indoor but they go outside as well

Just thought I would add...I bite my nails and chew my fingers so I am actively putting bacteria in my mouth. Im trying to stop because they look ugly but unless there is something obvious on my hands or I have been doing the litter then I will put my fingers in my mouth.

I have once or twice found a cat hair in my mouth and it doesnt make me react in a horrified manner, I just wonder how it got there!!

I have been this way with all of my cats and animals that I have owned/lived with. I have a rubbish immune system and quite often get a cold but I am probably only ill enough to not go to work 2 times a year at the most.

I do agree that we need bacteria to build up our immune system, I am sure if I didnt behave the way I did I would be really sickly.

My answers would be the same as everyone else. It's not something i tend to think about but i do understand how things like OCD affect your mind and how they control your thoughts. I have never actually had OCD myself but something i have learnt is, and i'm sure you will have heard this before, by continuing with the things you do i.e washing your hands every time you go near your cat you are reinforcing, in your mind, that cats are dirty and you need wash your hands. You need to gradually try to reduce the amount of times you wash your hands after touching your cat, which is easier said than done, i know. This will in effect train your mind back into believing cats are clean and you won't get sick from being around them.

A good book that helped me, with a kind of anxiety thing, was a dummies guide to cognitive behavioural therapy. If you have not read it i would definately recommend it.

It's totally possible to overcome OCD feelings about things. I had it badly several years ago about a peculiar circumstance and the one thing which actually virtually switched it off was just realising I wasn't alone and all around the world, other people felt the same way (and therefore I wasn't mad!!) Now if I ever recognise a trigger, I think to myself 'it's just OCD' and it just melts away. I know it's not always that easy - but it IS possible to overcome it so that it no longer affects your life (and hopefully you'll be fine around cats again )
Here's a few more answers for you anyway. In some ways, it might also help you if can see that some people also do feel like you do - as well as the opposite where you can see it doesn't matter to others! (if that makes any sense at all!??!)

Do you wash your hands everytime you touch your cat/s? Not at all

Have you ever got ill from being with your cat/s? No

How often do you wash your hands after stroking your cat/s? The only time I would, would be if I had been properly grooming them for a long time and then I was about to eat something with my fingers. But never after a quick stroke!

Do you wash your hands after touching things you know your cat/s have been on? No never

How often do you stroke your cat/s daily? Constantly!

If your cat/s touches your clothes/skin/bed how do you respond? Skin - I'm fine, clothes - fine but the hairs are annoying if I'm wearing black, bed - ok as long it's not the pillow. Somehow the cat being on the pillow and leaving hair there makes me feel a bit yukky. I used to put a towel over my pillows. I didn't like the thought of breathing in the hair. My Mum, on the other hand, lets her cat sleep with her on the pillow with her!

And do you have an indoor or outdoor cat? Indoor.

Hope all of these posts are helpful to you and best of luck with everything. There are some really great CBT books out there, as the last poster said, which might be useful too. You'll get lots of support on here too

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Do you wash your hands everytime you touch your cat/s?
No

Have you ever got ill from being with your cat/s?
No

How often do you wash your hands after stroking your cat/s?
Never

Do you wash your hands after touching things you know your cat/s have been on?
No

How often do you stroke your cat/s daily?
Every time I see them!

If your cat/s touches your clothes/skin/bed how do you respond?
I don't, it's not an issue for me

And do you have an indoor or outdoor cat?
2 that go in & out as they please


To be fair though I will eat a sandwich with hands covered in horse sh!t & mud & not think anything of it! My dear old Gran always used to say "We have all got to eat a bit of dirt before we die", meaning that being overly clean & not encountering any germs is not good for you. Also, I think that out of all my animals my cats are the cleanest

There are some fabullous answers on here and I hope they have helped.
CBT books will be usefull and the Dummies Guide to serious are brilliant they cover all sorts of things and explain everything in laymens terms I love them.
I agree about the germ thing to, people who are to clean as I say seem to suffer more with illnesses, I had a friend who wouldn't let her children get dirty and wiped them every time they so much as did get either food or something else on them, her children were always poorly. I work with children and with my own kids was never like this other than the normal hygeine as in sterilising etc they got dirty, I even follow the 3 second rule when food drops on the floor depending where we are of course and me and my family are not ill very often.
My husband has Pneumonia at the moment and is off work and quite ill with it however without the good immune system he has he would of probably ended up a lot worse off, in fact the doctor said he looked surprisingly well for how bad he sounded on the inside.
Slowly and with time, the right help and a positive attitude you CAN and WILL overcome your OCD just take it a little at a time and retrain your brain slowly and i'm sure you will get there.
Good luck and please let us know how you are getting on x x