u/Fun-Antelope7622

Has anyone gotten a fungal skin infection from throwing pots? I’ve recently started throwing pots regularly and have just been diagnosed with a mild fungal skin infection on my hands. It’s a fairly common infection but typically occurs in the armpits/buttocks/skin folds etc; the doctor said she’d never seen one on the hands before. I’m wondering if it could be pottery related since I can’t think of any other activities I’ve been doing that would keep my hands wet and nothing else. Is this a thing for anybody?

I have pretty bad health anxiety around respiratory illnesses and often feel compelled to take (potentially excessive) precautions to avoid catching anything. I know that exposure therapy is a good way to start retraining the brain away from anxiety, but I’m not sure how to tell when a precaution I’m taking is giving in to a compulsion or when it’s actually a prudent thing to do.

Thinking about this today because a friend I was going to meet for lunch tomorrow messaged to let me know that she caught a cold nine days ago and is still coughing, and that I can cancel on her if I want (because of my anxiety). I know that she probably isn’t contagious now, and I do want to meet her - I feel like the best thing to do would be to go to lunch anyway, and cancelling or rescheduling would be giving in to and therefore feeding my anxiety. On the other hand, maybe this is an unnecessary risk. I’m going in loops about this and I wonder - how do you tell the difference between prudence and just plain fear?