As the caregiver, you have to take some extra precautions to protect the person you are caring for. Click on any of the following ideas to get more information:

• Wash Your Hands and Wash Them Often

  Most importantly be sure to wash your hands before you make food or after you go to bathroom. Also, wash your hands after you sneeze or cough into your hands. If your hands become dry or sore, use lotion but continue to wash them often. Sanitizing hand lotion is also a great idea and is available at your local grocery store
• Cover your sores
  
  This is to protect both you and the person you are caring for from possible infection. You could get an infection in your sore and pass it on, or you could accidentally come into contact with HIV+ body fluid in the course of your duties Click to close.
  
  
• Keep away people who are sick
  
  Keep people who are sick away from the person you are caring for. If you are sick and no one else can help out, just wear a tight-fitting surgical mask over your mouth and nose to protect the person you are caring for from infection Click to close.
  
  
• Chickenpox
  
  This illness gets its own category because it is very dangerous to someone with advanced HIV disease or AIDS. Chickenpox has been known to kill people with AIDS. So, under no circumstances should you ever let anyone with chickenpox, shingles (a different disease caused by the same virus as chickenpox), or anyone who has recently been around someone with chickenpox or shingles come into the room of the person you are caring for. If either of these things does happen, contact the doctor of the person you are caring for immediately! Click to close.
  
  
• Get your childhood shots and boosters
  
  Make sure that everyone in your house has received their childhood vaccinations for mumps, measles, and rubella. Ask your family doctor if you will need to get boosters for these shots Click to close.
  
  
• Polio vaccine
  
  If someone in the house needs a polio vaccine, it is very important that they ask for the injection of the "inactive" virus. The oral polio vaccine given in liquid form contains a weakened polio virus, and a person who gets the oral polio vaccine could accidentally get someone with advanced HIV disease or AIDS sick Click to close.
  
  
• If you garden or have pets, be careful
  Pets and gardening can both be sources of germs and infections that you can pass on to a person with advanced HIV disease or AIDS. Be sure to wash your hands after playing with an animal or gardening. A person with advanced HIV disease or AIDS can have pets. Just make sure they know to wash their hands after touching the pet. Also, never let people with advanced HIV disease or AIDS touch animal feces or clean a cat's litter box. For more information, check out Pets and HIV Click to close.