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Urine, Not Chlorine, Causes Red Eyes in Pools (2015)
- sschueller 8y agoThat is why you should shower before going in to the pool. At school we were always required to shower before and after. One pool I have been at added a shower you have to go through to get to the pool. It's a continues curtain of water.
- hackandtrip 8y agoSlightly off topic, but you should shower to avoid temperature difference too, specially in hot days. I don't know about the lifeguard situation in USA, in Italy it's pretty terrible; it should be absolutely required to have a shower before jumping in the water.
- arethuza 8y agoWhy are sudden temperature changes bad? When I was a kid in the north of Scotland we'd always jump in as gradual exposure to cold water was miserable - the shock of jumping in was always quite bracing ;-) Mind you - as I doubt if it was much above 20C most of the time I doubt the temperature difference between air and water was that large!
- simias 8y agoI think the idea is that a sudden immersion in cold water when the weather is hot can cause a sudden contraction of your blood vessels which can result in a syncope. At least that's what I've always been told, but I know there's a lot of cargo culting and urban myths surrounding these topics so it's hard to know what's really dangerous and what's just superstition. For instance as a kid I've always been told that it was risky to swim just after eating a meal (because of the bloodflow required for digestion or something like that) but as far as I know it's been debunked and doesn't make biological sense.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoSyncope == faint(ing) TIL a new word, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncope_(medicine) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncope_(medicine)
- simias 8y agoI actually ended up with this word while attempting to translate the French word "hydrocution" but after some more googling it looks like "cold shock response" is the right term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_shock_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_shock_response
- snowwrestler 8y agoI find it hard to imagine how a swimming pool could be cold enough in a hot climate for this to be an issue for anyone healthy. If it's hot for more than a couple days, the pool water will start to warm up too. I've heard of this concern more in the context of much larger bodies of water like the ocean or snow-fed mountain lakes, which can stay cold a lot longer than a pool by virtue of their size (and in the case of the latter, a continuous influx of very cold water).
- tomhoward 8y agoThe cardiovascular system has to suddenly adjust its rate to keep the body warm enough. If your heart is weak, it may not be up to the task and a heart attack is possible. It might be fine for young people and people with people with peak cardiovascular health, but for older people or anyone with impaired cardiovascular health, the risk goes up.
- tzs 8y agoDoes how you get into the cold water make a difference? Specifically, entering in a way that does not trigger the mammalian diving reflex, such as wading in up to your chest or neck, versus entering in a way that does trigger it, such as holding your breath and jumping completely in?
- akuji1993 8y agoYes, because then the body doesn't have to adjust to the new environment in a second but gradually adjust instead.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoNow, I'm thinking of all those images of old Russians going in to frozen outdoor pools, AFAIR they always climb down a ladder/steps. This might explain why. Slowly getting in to cold water is some kind of torture to me, I always dive in. But frigid water is not my thing at all.
- Tade0 8y agoI don't know about the lifeguard situation in USA, in Italy it's pretty terrible; Interesting, because my impression was that there's a decent amount of staff comparing to my country (Poland). Also it's the first place at which I've seen a line of lifeguards on rafts making sure nobody reaches the point where they can collide with motorboats.
- hackandtrip 8y agoI don't know about the Poland situation, but the main problem in Italian (I guess other lifeguard certs too) it's the lack of any required refresher course. Things are changing fast on first aid practices best practice and a lot of people are behind. Personal example: I'm 20, I am a certified lifeguard (I did the training because I was a competitive swimmer), no experience but I could extend my certificate till I am 65 year old, in whatever physique condition with whatever knowledge of best practice. That's just plain wrong, and I know that a lot of States work in a really different way with refresher courses and such, making pools and sea a safer place.
- dangerbird2 8y agoLuckily, it's much better in the USA, even though many regulations vary across state and county lines. Where I worked, we needed an in-pool refresher course and test every year, with a pool management course (chemicals, filter, etc) every 2 or 3 years. After getting you American Red Cross CPR certification, you needed to take a short refresher course every year for the next 2 years, after which you'd need to retake the course.
- Bromskloss 8y agoCould you explain the thing about the temperature difference? What's that about? Also, where do you have lifeguards? Indoors, outdoors? I don't remember seeing any at all here in Sweden.
- hackandtrip 8y agoThere are a variety of reasons why it's considered best practice to make people have a shower before entering the pool. They already explained it, talking about elderly people / etc. If it's sunny and you are out of the water from three hours tanning, your heart adjust to a certain frequency. If you jump in with any prior advice to your body into the water, heart has to adjust to a much different frequency, and an heart attack is possible. The problem here is that a lot of people doesn't know what's going on with their hearth and certainly a lifeguard doesn't know about. Also, adding to that, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_shock_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_shock_response I don't know about Sweden situation, but it seems really weird that no lifeguard was there. In Italy every public or private place with a pool needs a number of lifeguards according to the number of people of the pool / the pool's dimension. It's really easy to have some heart attack or hypoxia going unnoticed, example: X person jump in, simply doesn't get up. Also, time is key, if an heart attack occurs a close defribillator with someone able to use that / a lifeguard able to transport that person out of the pool without damages (it's not that easy as it sounds) can be really important. Drowning situations are even more dangerous, a drowning person can have a force in their arms able to do real damage and everything needs to be deal in the safest way.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago> One pool I have been at added a shower you have to go through to get to the pool. It's a continues curtain of water. That's clever, they should install that in more places.
- LoSboccacc 8y agodunno. seems a lot of wasted water, you can't recirculate it or you'd be back to square one. maybe if it's activated with a pressure plate of sort it'd be more environmentally friendly.
- osrec 8y agoOr a motion sensor perhaps?
- Faaak 8y agoMaybe the water is changed every day. It would still be useful as the large (lets say 2m³) volume of water would slowly begin charging up with contaminants
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dangerbird2 8y agoAt that point, you'd need to treat it with chlorine, and it wouldn't be much better than the pool itself. Probably better to just use good greywater recycling techniques for shower waste.
- gm-conspiracy 8y agoWhy do you think it is being wasted? It isn't being contaminated, and will eventually wind up back in the water supply.
- werdnapk 8y agoIt is definitely being contaminated and won't end up back in the water supply until it's retreated (which is not free).
- andai 8y agoI want to stop learning now.
- AnatMl2 8y ago>Actually, according to CDC healthy swimming spokesperson and epidemiologist Michele Hlavsa, it’s poop. She tells LiveScience’s Rachael Rettner that people with diarrhea can spread a filter and chorine-resistant Cryptosporidium, a parasite that is the leading cause of waterborne disease. I love swimming and this article has just disturbed me so much, I'm not sure I'll be going to the swimming pool in the near future.
- arethuza 8y agoMy wife had an attack of cryptosporidium a few years back that the doctor said was almost certainly from a swimming pool - very unpleasant bug.
- icebraining 8y agoWas it covered or outdoors? The wiki says it can be deactivated using low doses of UV, I wonder if being exposed to the sun is enough.
- arethuza 8y agoIndoors - a public one that was close to end of life.
- bitL 8y agoThat just killed my swimming sessions. Thanks HN!
- tomclive 8y agoThe headline is a bit clickbaity. The third paragraph starts with "In fact, chlorine is still a culprit." A more accurate title could be "Urine and Chlorine Cause Red Eyes in Pools."
- wyattpeak 8y agoI think it's more accurate as it is. Your alternative suggests to me that both contribute independently i.e. chlorine alone will burn eyes, where the article suggests that isn't true. Since chlorine in pools is ubiquitous, the urine's the central issue. C.f. hydrogen tanks being labelled "fire hazard", not "fire hazard in an oxygen environment".
- tomclive 8y agoMaybe, but it's not only urine that causes red eyes. When chlorine binds with any organic matter it can create compounds that sting your eyes. Sweat isn't as eye-catching as urine.
- mickronome 8y agoActually, it's chloramine alone that is the culprit for both the smell and the red eyes according to the actual report. Which isn't reporting any new finding, as far as I know this has been well known since many years. The short version is; A pool that smells strongly of 'clorine' ( chloramine(s) ) is a pool with a high load of contaminants, and whether or not the chlorine concentration is kept at levels enough to cope with the load can't afaik easily be determined, but it's reasonable to a assume a higher load implies a higher risk for insufficient levels. Or as the report states: >What you smell are actually chemicals that form when chlorine mixes with pee, poop, sweat, and dirt from swimmers’ bodies. Yuck! >These chemicals—not chlorine—can cause your eyes to get red and sting, make your nose run, and make you cough. >Healthy pools, waterparks, hot tubs, splash pads, and spray parks don’t have a strong chemical smell.
- Udik 8y agoI don't get it. Chlorinated water from the drinking tap, otherwise perfectly pure, smells of chlorine. And swimming pools might use much more than it's used in public water distribution, and in variable amounts- depending on how many tablets have been used, how recently, etc.
- ageofwant 8y agoWell this is.... unfortunate.
- rascul 8y agoI helped maintain a large public pool a few years back, and I saw first hand how disgusting they could be. I now swim almost exclusively in creeks and rivers.
- fileoffset 8y agoAnd hope there isn't a school trip up stream...
- peterburkimsher 8y agoAre there companies doing wastewater monitoring on pools for public health? All kinds of disgusting things get flushed down toilets in homes and businesses. I think that monitoring a swimming pool would give more helpful data, because the bacteria/viruses/pollutants were all carried by humans.
- lbruder 8y agoWorking for a water treatment company here. We have created a mathematical model for public pools that includes a projected number of visitors per weekday, the weather forecast, school holidays, and based on that, a daily influx of urine, feces, pus and so on. We use this model to create adaptive controllers that minimize the amount of chemicals used to keep the water safe while actually keeping it safe (work in progress). Working for this company taught me stuff I really didn't want to know about...
- gm-conspiracy 8y agoNow you just need to correlate your model with the stock market and use Twitter for sentiment analysis.
- newnewpdro 8y agoPeople would take their infant children swimming in "swimmies" (diapers) at an apartment complex pool I used to often get ear and eye infections from using. Once I learned that's what those children were wearing in the pool I ceased all usage. Never had those problems before or after that particular rental.
- kbos87 8y agoI worked at a pool as a lifeguard instructor throughout high school and college. The aquatics director used to try to explain this to people who would blame her for misbalanced chemicals when there was a strong chlorine smell. It would always get so much worse as soon as the pool got busy, like during a swim class or children’s swim lessons. Getting people to shower before entering the pool was a hopeless plight.
- valeryB 8y agoAren't the pools supposed to be sanitized everyday? And shouldn't it be shut down if it's not properly maintained?
- M_Bakhtiari 8y agoWhat kind of maintenance do you propose is going to prevent people from micturating and defecating into the water?
- ganonm 8y agoThe chlorinates created when the chlorine reacts with e.g. sweat and urine is what causes red eyes and breathing difficulties. From my experience, stay away from hotel/health club pools. These usually have saunas and jacuzzis which means people jump into the pool afterwards and contaminate it a lot... If you are doing swimming for fitness you will be inhaling a much larger volume of air, plus you will be inhaling air near the surface of the water where the chlorinates are most concentrated. Stick to public leisure centres where the pools are designated for fitness swimming. The people using these pools are generally a lot more conscientious about showering before entering the pool.
- nickjj 8y agoWhen you say difficulty in breathing, do you mean that feeling that you sometimes get after being in a pool for a long time where if you take a deep breath, it kind of hurts your lungs?
- Reason077 8y agoThat’s the feeling I get after walking or cycling in London traffic and getting a lung full of diesel fumes...
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThat's the same feeling most humans get when they're exerting themselves in an environment with lots of airborne particulate matter.
- frockington 8y agoI normally get that feeling when exercising on open trails as well or even indoors. It's part of exercising intensely
- Reason077 8y agoPerhaps, but it feels much worse in a polluted environment, and takes much longer to go away (lungs still sore/“tight” hours later). I do think it’s strange when I see people jogging along polluted arterial roads for this reason. Especially when there are often traffic-free trails or quiet back roads available nearby!
- swiley 8y agoI hadn’t been to a public pool in years (we have our own) until the other week and had forgotten what it smelled/tasted like. The smell/taste of public pool water is definitely mostly urine, chlorine does not smell like that.
- stonewhite 8y agoThere is a very informative video[1] that also links to scientific papers about this phenomenon and concludes much less sensationally. Essentially, urine is a sterile substance containing %95 pure water and no living cells or bacteria. Other than the asthma inducing effects of chloramine, swimming at a public pool doesn't pose a massive threat to your health. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32y9aYEzzo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32y9aYEzzo
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mattbessey 8y agoWhile that may be the case for urine, the article pretty clearly states that fecal matter is a significant risk factor.
- qlm 8y agoI was under the impression that the sterility of urine was a myth. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3957746/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3957746/ https://www.europeanurology.com/article/S0302-2838(15)00206-7/fulltext https://www.europeanurology.com/article/S0302-2838(15)00206-...
- Scea91 8y agoSwimming pool I occasionally visit in Prague uses less chlorine and has installed UV lamps in the pipes. The water quality is great. I hope this gets more widespread.
- V-2 8y ago"Luckily, there are several easy ways to prevent things from tainting your poolside experience forevermore." Okay... "Always shower before entering" Right, but I'm not the one with diarrhoea. I can't get everyone else to always shower. "stay out of the pool if you’re not feeling well" By the time you're feeling unwell, isn't it too late already? "test water frequently if you own your own pool" Getting your own pool is certainly a great tip. Duly noted. For those of you afraid of pickpockets on public transport - a very easy way of dealing with it would be to get a car. For some reason it makes me think of The Onion :)
- akuji1993 8y agoReminds me a bit of Buzzfeed articles like "10 people you thought, were still alive!" with a picture of Keanu Reeves as the article headline image and then, obviously, he's not on the list. Why do you even bother...
- adrianmonk 8y agoThe report comes from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), not the Centers for Convenient Pool Access! The focus is going to be on things that someone somewhere can do which are effective at disease prevention. Someone who manages a pool (at, say, a hotel or a park) can change their policy to require showers, for example.
- dalacv 8y agojust wear goggles, ear plugs and use a snorkel
- M_Bakhtiari 8y agoHow feasible is that mythical pool pee dye? I suppose an indicator dye that responds to chloramines could be developed, but the real challenge would be to make it safe and cheap enough not to be counter-productive.
- marius_k 8y agoThis title makes my eyes red.
- nso95 8y agoI think I’ll just stay out of the pool