Exposure question

[Riles27]

Greetings.  About 6 months ago I placed an IV in a patient with gloves on but but the blood leaked onto my gloves and on the bed.  I finished drawing the blood samples and took off my gloves and was helping the patient get comfortable and noticed blood on my fingers.  I washed my hands and did not think much of it.  Later, I found out that he had extremely high LFTs and HEP panel pending.  I have read the CDC guidlines regarding risk exposure to intact/nonintact skin and have found only data on needle sticks.  But, now I have symptoms of dry mouth and nausea over the past week.  I am planning on a HEP panel now myself, but am just hoping for a little encouragement to hear that I am at very low risk as I do not remember an open cut or sore on my had after washing them that night.  Thanks for your time.  Sean    

[pooh55811]

I did consider that you might be moonlighting or working per diem or working on call  and thus had no access to the records. Makes sense.

Just for the record, I was not implying you deliberately left anything out of your anecdote, but I wanted to make clear that my response was based on the info you gave. Sometimes people accidentally forget to include things. However, upon re-reading your original post, it is pretty clear that you stated you do not remember having any breaks in the skin, cuts or sores (which could potentially be a point of entry, although not real common).

Just to ease your mind I think a Hep Panel would be a good idea if you are still concerned. Sometimes people just need to see it on paper and know for sure.

I don't know how old you are but if you are middle aged or older and have been a nurse for a long time (especially back when there were no CDC guidelines for using universal precautions and no one wore gloves for anything except to protect the patient), getting tested is not a bad idea anyway.  

Best of luck.

[Riles27]

Thanks for the reply and boost of confidence.  I was moonlighting and the hospital admin will not release the results to me.  As I wish they would to ease my fears as you eluded.  Nothing missing from stroy in terms of details.  As I said, I dont recal and open wound on any of my fingers, but was not sure about microtears that are not visible to the eye? Thanks!

[Riles27]

Man, tough crowd. Thanks for the reply. Familiar with symptoms.  Nausea is a symptom as generic as it is.  I understand that dry mouth is a symptom of the tx, but if you look at other research, Sjogren's and its symptoms are  associated with over 20% of the HEP C patients.  

[pooh55811]

As noted above, Hep C is spread by getting the infected person's blood into another person's blood stream. The blood (and the virus) cannot go through intact skin.  

From your description of the incident, your risk of contracting Hep C is exceptionally low, bordering on nonexistant (unless there is something that is not in your anecdote).

I am curious, though, you said that a Hep C panel was pending for the patient. It takes an extremely short time to get the results of a Hep panel back from the lab, a matter a couple of days. It should have been easy to check the results of that Hep panel and, if the Hep panel was negative, save yourself months of needless worry.  

[can-do-man]

As a health care worker its sad one is not aware of this. As OH said its blood to blood, blood to gloves or blood to fingers won't get it....

[orphanedhawk]

Dry mouth and nausea are not signs of hep C.
They are symptoms of the treatment.

Hep C is spread blood to blood.
If you can find this forum you can easily search for symptoms and causes of hep C.