I carry an old spice jar with some cotton balls and alcohol in my pocket with my clippers. It is also good just to disinfect between plant work, especially if you have disease like I have from all this rain!
My doctor suggested that I have a tetnus shot every 5-6 years because of the garden. During a physical a few years ago she looked at my emergency visit records (a few stiches due to garden related spazzticity) and I was loaded with cuts and bruises etc. She said that they use 10 years for tetnus based on the average amounts of cuts a person has during that time....and that someone like a gardener has far more and needs more vaccinations.
This is good advice for someone like me, who gave herself a cut and a blackeye yesterday yanking out a spent tomato plant!

GGG: "You think this is bad, you should see the tomato!"

"Garden spazzticity." Heh heh heh! For me it's the eye doctor. Mikey has to drive me down every so often to have something pulled out of my eye. Usually sticks. Sometimes it's temporary blindness from oleander sap or brugmansia juice. Last time we were there, the Doc told Mikey to buy me a helmet before letting me back into the garden.

You two are so funny!!!heh heh! Good to know tho...I don't even remember the last shot I got....well over 20yrs ago....

Last year, I was visiting the Rose Forum more often and I read a thread about the infections people would get from thorns. It was news to me that could happen. So I put getting a tetanus shot on my to do list, since it had been at least 15years since I had one. Kept putting it to the bottom of the list. One day a month ago, I stepped up on an upholstered chair to reach something and a nail tip came out of the seat and I stepped on the tip of it. Just barely broke the surface of the skin, but I finally got my tetanus shot. One less thing to worry about. I use Alcohol on my shears and Felco pruners every time I head out to the garden or before I put them away. If I use them on something that has disease, then I clean them again before using them on another plant.

I never would have thought about dropping the pruners with open toe shoes! I hope it is not too painful and thanks for posting this!

it's not just tetanus that one has to be careful about but a whole slew of other infections. So as soon as you get cuts, disinfect and bandage. If it does not heal and the wound gets hot and one starts running a fever.. run to the emergency room.

So hitting my eye with the tomato cage resulted in a slightly black eye (easy to hide) and middle ear problems! I wonked a sinus and created negative pressure resulting in severe pain and unknown problems in my inner ear. I'm on a low dose of steroids (and have eaten two containers of icecream, two lots of pancakes plus regular food in 4 days! YIPES!) and that is making me INSANE (can not sit down for long but getting a LOT done :) - and some ear drops. I thought it felt better for a few days, but today I can feel it a bit painful again. Next stop they go in there and do "something" before damage is done.

Better off than my dad. He got blood poisoning from digging in his compost without gloves. It was very very serious and he went to the hospital and they had to remove and clean his blood and replace it all. Scary.

Yup gotta be careful out there.When i had my mastectomy,before i left the hospital they told me all the things i couldn't do,and for the first few months gardening was one of them!!

They told me that when i was able to garden again ,that i had to make sure i wore gloves at all times,as there is so much bacteria,parasites etc in the soil and with my immune system being compromised,that i would always have to wear gloves,and if i did get a cut or stabbed by a rose thorn or something to go inside and wash it with warm water very good,and keep an eye on it.

That was hard for me to get used to as i didn't like wearing gloves.Now i wear them all the time,but i mostly wear the kind the dr's do and i put 2 pair on at a time.Better to be safe than sorry.
Kathi