Going Both Ways

Does anyone remember the old safety thermometers that looked like the bastard off-spring of an oral and a rectal thermometer? They had a thick, elongated bulb and supposedly could go both ways. We had one at home growing up and I was always concerned it had been used in someone's butt. Did anyone else have similar concerns as a kid?

No , we had the standard rectal thermometer, and standard oral thermometer sitting in the medicine cabinet

Only rectal thermometers, no oral.

We didn’t have that type of thermometer, but i grew up with digital thermometers that very well may have been used both ways!

In France, glass thermometers are not separated into rectal and oral types. I recall reading the instructions coming with one of my parents' thermometers and they said it could be used rectally, orally or in armpit. Since my mother enforced rectal use, there was anyway no confusion possible: these thermometers had never been in anyone's mouth and had visited the family's rectums. Mom always cleaned the thermometer with alcohol after use.

Yes, that is the first type of thermometer I used on my wife. A little thicker than the standard thermometer.

I used a Geotherm thermometer, the one with the long tip and a little bit more rounded, my wife enjoyed this one the beat when I took her temperature.

Yes I remember those type of thermometers too. We may have 1 of them and a back up thermometer. But in our medicine cabinet we had both an oral and rectal thermometer. If it was used as a rectal thermometer before going into the mouth it would have been cleaned first .

I hated as I got older going to the pediatrician even in my younger teen years. The nurse would stand at the counter there was always 2 different thermometer on it. one black top one red top. most of the time the nurse would ask mom if she was doing oral or rectal temperatures at home. Unless u was there for a sick appointment then they would pick up the red top rectal thermometer as I got older I remember it having a shorter larger end the the oral thermometer had.

We only had rectal thermometers at our home. They all had the pear-shaped silver bulb on the business end, and the red triangle tip or red marking on the opposite end. Mom was the primary caretaker for all my sisters and me. As the youngest child, mom and my older sisters took my temperature. At the clinic, all the nurses at the clinic used rectal thermometers. Some had the silver pear-shaped bulb; others were the short stubby silver bulb. I always saw the nurses take them from the refrigerators in the examination room. This was after I was laying on the table on my tummy, with my arms at my side. The nurse had already lowered my underwear to my knees. She told me to lay still and not move. I was always able to watch her prep the thermometer.

At my doctor's the thermometers were kept on the counter in thermometer jars, in a rack with a big pot of vaseline between the thermometer jars. Both thermometers were rectal.

As KenW mentioned, my pediatrician had both rectal and oral thermometers on the counter in glass holders. The vaseline was kept in a cabinet drawer. After my bp, when my nurse went to the drawer, I knew what laid ahead.

I've seen those thermometers on ebay. But growing up, both my mom and stepmom only had labelled oral or rectal thermometers. Their idea of “safety” was also judging a thermometer by shape. There was no way to mistake a thermometer with a long, thin bulb other that oral. Any thermometer with a stubby or pear shaped bulb and red tipped stem was most definitely meant to go up your butt. In other word, they wouldn't take your temperature by mouth with a stubby tipped thermometer for obvious reasons. I always had my temperatures taken rectally through 5 years of age anyway.

I asked mom, a retired pediatric nurse, about these. She said that they came out in the 1970's to boost thermometer sales with a multi-use one.

I have a both-way thermometer from the 70's it has a blue top but a stubby bulb. It has never been used orally. It was made by BD and has a yellow back. I also have this same type of thermometer with a red top.

Good marketing, but I’d bet a lot were miss-used and not sanitized properly. Not for my family.