Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
close window
Housecall Archives
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
close window
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Lifestyle and home remedies
By Mayo Clinic staffBecause people with certain myelodysplastic syndromes have low white blood cell counts, they're subject to recurrent, and often serious, infections. To reduce your risk of infections, try to:
- Wash your hands. Frequent hand washing is the best way to control infection. Wash your hands thoroughly with warm, soapy water, especially before eating or preparing food. Carry an alcohol-based hand rub for times when water isn't available.
- Take care with food. Thoroughly cook all meat and fish. Avoid fruits and vegetables that you can't peel, especially lettuce, and wash all produce you do use before peeling. To be absolutely safe, you may want to avoid raw foods entirely.
- Avoid people who are ill. Because myelodysplastic syndromes can affect your immune system, try to avoid close contact with anyone who is sick, including family members and co-workers.
References
- Nguyen PL. The myelodysplastic syndromes. Hematology/Oncology Clinics of North America. 2009;23:675.
- Myelodysplastic syndromes treatment (PDQ) patient version. National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/myelodysplastic/patient/allpages/print. Accessed Sept. 2, 2009.
- Vardiman JW, et al. The 2008 revision of the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of myeloid neoplasms and acute leukemia: Rationale and important changes. Blood. 2009;114:937.
- Foran JM, et al. Myelodysplastic syndromes. In: Abeloff MD, et al. Abeloff's Clinical Oncology. 4th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Churchill Livingstone; 2008:2235.
- Stone RM. How I treat patients with myelodysplastic syndromes. Blood. 2009;113:6296.
- DeAngelo DJ, et al. Myelodysplastic syndromes: Biology and treatment. In: Hoffman R, et al. Hematology: Basic Principles and Practice. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Churchill Livingstone; 2009. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/book.do?method=display&type=aboutPage&decorator=header&eid=4-u1.0-B978-0-443-06715-0..X5001-8--TOP&isbn=978-0-443-06715-0&uniq=158945000. Accessed Aug. 26, 2009.
