Visitors and a weakened immune system

When you have a weakened immune system because you take medication to suppress it you worry about lots of things.  The Doctors tell you to avoid people with colds and viruses because a little bug can turn into severe pneumonia.  An over-reaction you may think?  Nah!  Every person I have spoken to who is on immunosuppressants tells me it takes longer to fight off colds and stomach bugs, they get more viruses and sinus infections and many have ended up in hospital severely poorly!
You can't see germs, but anyone with any common sense knows you should wash your hands after visiting the toilet, before meals, after stroking animals and after sneezing yucky stuff all over your hands!
When you have a low immune system you tell all your friends and family not to come around when they have a cold or bug.  Most of them get it and stay away but there is always one person who thinks it won't matter, who thinks it's only a sniffle..what's the worst that could happen?!
For a start, if I do get a 'little sniffle' I have to stop taking my meds so my immune system can return to normal so it can fight off the germs before it turns into something serious.  Stopping meds means an increase in my symptoms....PAIN!! stiffness, fatigue...THANKS FOR THAT, SICK PERSON!  Because stopping my meds means my immune system returns to the level it was at pre-meds....OVERACTIVE!  My immune system is attacking healthy parts of my body!  All the good work undone by stopping meds can take months to put right after restarting them, that's if I don't contract something my body can't fight off all because you thought it would be ok to come round when your nose was running!
Many Autoimmune patients have died because of sickness turning into something more severe....sepsis for example.  We have to face the reality of this possibility every day and it's SCARY!  So please please leave us alone when you are sick!

And when you do come and visit when you are better...please remove your shoes in my house!

If you don't understand why I ask this....have a read of this:  http://ecochildsplay.com/2008/06/17/shoes-transmit-disease-leave-them-by-the-door/

Why do people think it is ok to walk germs from outside into my lovely clean house?!  It's not the dirt and mud I am worried about it's the germs, as explained in this article you would be amazed how many bugs are on the bottom of your shoes.  Think about where you walk, the park, fields where dogs mess, down the path where they cock their legs up against lamp-posts, public toilets where most people stand up to pee so it goes everywhere!  You take all of this with you without even realising it!  Most people could handle these germs if they came into contact with them but for the sick, young and elderly people, we have all this extra stress worrying about avoiding these invisible killers. So if you see us frantically using hand sanitiser in the street or constantly cleaning...have some compassion...we do not have OCD.....we have Autoimmune Disease...be thankful you don't!