Hi piers, I read your other post first (the title sort of grabbed my attention ha ha!) and only just remembered to look at this one.
yes I agree with the others, this is sad that your life is being rules by the emet to this extent.
Please have a look if you haven't already done so at Sage's success story (it's on the fron page) and follow th elink on their to her website, it's really very inspirational and reassuring and one of the best thing si learnt from it is that soap doesn't "kill" sv's it simply helps release them from your skin so you can rinse them away down the plughole.
Alcohol hand rubs do NOT protect your from sv's they are only anti-bacterial not anti-viral. There a coupl eof anti-viral ones on the market (one is called zapp-it and is available from their website, forgot what it is but google it and it will comeup) and that says it kills practically anything inclusing noro plus it's alcohol free and kind to your skin.
I get you now with the gloves, they're disposables...i know they're probably like your safety blanket right now but honestly soap and water for about 20 seconds (i read somewhere it's the time to sing happy birthday twice or something..) will clean your hands well enough.
get yourself some Dettol Anti-bacterial surface spray for doing your kithen and bathroom and some dettol aerosol spray for doing door handles, remote controls etc it's anti viral and anti bacterial.
CBT helped me loads, it didn't get rid of the phobia and i don't think anything ever will it just taught me to control IT rather than the other way round.
I have massive ups and downs and extremes of it but touch wood have lived quite normally with it for a few years now.
Could you maybe start taking your gloves off for really short periods of time and gradually extend the length of time as you gain confidence and realise that nothing bad is going to happen without them on?
I'm glad you found the site, you'll get loads of good advice and support here.
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