What illnesses have you gotten from grocery store cart handles?

@Aster We don’t think it was from a grocery cart, but a computer keyboard: My husband came home and nearly died from meningitis.

Almost no one disinfects their keyboard…and rarely do people at companies clean their hands after bathroom breaks, picking their noses, scratching themselves, etc. My husband had to learn the hard way that he needed to protect himself.

I don’t know that there’s any way to tell whether an illness was contracted through contact with a grocery cart.

If it concerns you, keep some wipes in your bag and clean the handle first. A lot of stores around here have wipe dispensers in the cart storage area these days.

But you should know that those same dirty hands that wiped excrement all over the handle probably touched a lot of other things in the store, too.

How would I know it was from a grocery handle and not, well, anything else I came into contact with?

Think door handles and door knobs and count how many you touch everyday. Just wash your hands before you eat and all should be well. A few germs are actually good for you as it keeps your immune system on it’s toes.

I hear what you’re saying, but as far as i’m aware i’ve never contracted any illness straight after shopping XD
However, I have gotten a headache from shouting so much at the bloody things. I hate the wonky, go anywhere but where you tell them, wheels! Or that might just be me :¬)

I don’t think you could prove any illness was contacted from grocery carts. A person touches too many other things that other people touch, door knobs, elevator buttons, gas nozzles at the gas station, grocery boxes or can other people handled. It’s all part of the fear campaign. Be afraid of this; be afraid of that. Politics fosters it; drug companies sell it. Companies that sell cleaning products use it. (There was a woman in our neighborhood who used hoses from neighbor hood yards to wash dog poop off the road because she was sure cars would track it into her garage and then it would get in her house. I think she got some psychological help, because she finally stopped. ) The solution is for everyone who is afraid of germs to wear anti-microbe suits to cover themselves completely when they leave the house.

I would think that any contaminants on a cart would initially have to come from someone else’s hands. On that basis, human hands must the dirtiest things on the planet. Can’t say that I’ve actually picked up anything bad from one. I think you are just scaremongering for some reason.

I don’t know for sure if I’ve ever come down with an illness from the grocery cart, but chances are pretty high that I have, because of the fecal matter that is known to land there by way of baby’s behinds.

I did come down with the worst illness of my entire life immediately after my baby nephew played on one of those bouncey houses at a theme park. i developed severe bronchitis and eventually coughed my rib loose from my chest wall and had to go to the hospital.

I used to get sick quite a bit, but for the last 5 years, I’ve used hand sanitizer on the grocery carts, on the kids, on my hands, on door handles etc. and I haven’t been sick once. I was following the example that was used in the hospital when my Dad had surgery. They had hand sanitzer inside and outside of every room. They would sanitize before and after touching anything or anyone. I use sanitizer a lot when I’m cooking. Before and after touching any food and before and after touching the faucet or the trash can. And I sanitize the counter before I cook and after I cook. Good restaurants follow this practice too. It cuts down on possible food poisoning.

Well it’s not an illness, but I know a little girl who’s deaf because of shopping cart handles. You know how some of them automatically stop being able to move if they’re brought too far from the store? Well the pregnant woman was pushing the cart to her car, which was parked sort of far, and the cart stopped and forcefully pushed into her abdomen. It hit where the fetus’s ears were developing and the kid’s deaf. :(

I use the germ juice wipey thingies a lot. But, as @Seelix said, impossible to claim you got sick from a grocery cart handle.
Many things are airborne and who knows, maybe it was handling the Chilean grapes or the Mexican Mangos.

I’ve had a good year, no viruses since last July.

I don’t know if I have ever caught something from a grocery store cart handle but if I have it has never been worse than a cold. I try not to worry myself about such things, there is enough to worry about in life without being paranoid about everything we touch and we need a few germs to help build our immune systems anyway.