How to Practice Good Hygiene When You’re Living With Primary Immunodeficiency

Living with primary immunodeficiency (PI) doesn’t mean you need to treat every surface, public place, or social interaction as dangerous. But it does mean that everyday hygiene is especially important to help you stay healthy.

“People with primary immunodeficiency are at increased risk of severe complications from infections or prolonged illness, so everyday hygiene can help prevent infections from happening in the first place,” says Nora Odisho Domit, DO, an adult and pediatric allergist and immunologist at Banner Health in Arizona.

The good news: It doesn’t have to be complicated. Steady, practical habits can lower risk without taking over your day.

Why Hygiene Matters

“Good personal hygiene can help prevent infections such as respiratory illnesses, including influenza, COVID, and the common cold, gastrointestinal illnesses, such as norovirus, and skin infections, such as staph,” says Dr. Odisho.

Good Personal Hygiene

Practicing good personal hygiene may seem too basic to be helpful, but the opposite is true.

“Handwashing, even though it sounds like the simplest thing, is the most important hygiene habit to do consistently,” says Odisho.

The most important times to give your hands a good scrub include:

• Before eating or preparing food
• After using the bathroom
• After coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose
• After outdoor activities, gardening, or other dirty tasks
• After feeding, petting, or cleaning up after pets
• After being around someone who is sick

  [4]

Other personal hygiene habits can also reduce infection risk.

Keep nails short, smooth, and clean. “Keeping nails short and dull can also help prevent infections,” says Odisho.

Bathe or shower regularly and wash your hair. Basic soap and water are usually enough unless your doctor recommends something different.

Don’t overlook your mouth. “Oral health is the most overlooked,” says Odisho “Regular visits with the dentist, as well as flossing and brushing as directed, are important to help prevent infections that can start in the gums.” Having PI may make you especially prone to gum disease and infections related to decayed teeth.

Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or your elbow. If possible, wash your hands afterward.

Don’t pick at your skin. Picking at healing wounds, blemishes, or pimples can make it easier for germs to enter the skin.

Good Food Hygiene

Food safety is part of hygiene, too. People with PI are more likely to get sick from certain foodborne germs, which makes avoiding food poisoning especially important.

A simple way to remember the basics is: clean, separate, cook, and chill.

Clean Wash your hands and kitchen surfaces often.

Separate Keep raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs away from foods that are ready to eat.

Cook Use a food thermometer to make sure foods reach a safe internal temperature.

People with PI should consider these safety steps.

• Avoid raw or undercooked meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs.
• Avoid unpasteurized milk, juice, cider, or soft cheese.
• Avoid unwashed fruits and vegetables.
• Don't eat raw dough or batter.
• Avoid foods that have been left out too long.

  [12]

• Avoid sharing dishes, glasses, or eating utensils, especially with someone who is sick. The same goes for napkins, tissues, handkerchiefs, and similar items used by others.

  [4]

Good Home Hygiene

The best approach to home hygiene is to focus on the places and items most likely to spread germs.

Keep home surfaces that are “high-touch areas” clean to help prevent the spread of infections, says Odisho.

Helpful home hygiene habits include:

• Clean high-touch surfaces often. Focus on doorknobs, faucets, kitchen counters, light switches, phones, remote controls, appliance handles, and bathroom surfaces. Clean more often when someone in the home is sick.
• Don’t share personal items. Towels, washcloths, razors, toothbrushes, and other items that come in close contact with the body should not be shared with other people.
• Let towels dry fully between uses. Damp towels are a breeding ground for yeasts, bacteria, molds and viruses.

  [13]

• Keep humidity under control. “Managing humidity and remediating any visible mold damage can help prevent respiratory complications from mold exposure,” says Odisho.
• Clean children’s toys regularly. This is especially important for toys that are shared, placed in a child’s mouth, or used during illness.

  [14]

How to Teach Children About Hygiene

For children with PI, the goal is confidence, not fear. Hygiene should help them feel more prepared to participate in school, play, family life, and the activities they enjoy.

“It may help to frame hygiene as ‘keeping you strong,’ instead of ‘because you are sick,’” says Odisho. “Get the family involved and encourage everyone to model good hygiene habits together,” she says.

That family approach can help a child feel less singled out. If everyone washes hands before meals, covers coughs, avoids sharing cups, and keeps up with toothbrushing, hygiene becomes a normal household routine.

Effective strategies include:

• Model the behavior. Children are more likely to follow hygiene routines when they see adults doing the same things consistently.
• Show, don’t just tell. Help children practice washing all parts of their hands, brushing along the gumline, covering a cough, and putting used tissues in the trash.
• Set age-appropriate expectations. Young children may need hands-on help, while older children can gradually take more responsibility for their daily routine.
• Make it fun for younger kids. Songs, timers, sticker charts, or checklists can make handwashing, toothbrushing, and bathing feel less like a chore.
• Keep checking in. Even after children can do hygiene tasks independently, they may still need reminders during busy mornings, school days, travel, sleepovers, or illness.

  [16]

The Takeaway

• Good hygiene doesn’t have to be complicated, and it can help lower infection exposure when you’re living with primary immunodeficiency,
• Handwashing, dental care, cough etiquette, clean cuts, and safer food handling are some of the highest-impact habits.
• Home hygiene should focus on high-touch surfaces, personal items, humidity and mold control, and regular toy cleaning — not constant disinfecting.
• For children with PI, hygiene works best when the whole family models it as a normal way to stay strong and well.