Chlorine allergy and the end of my swimming days.....
Former Member
Well I'm grateful every day to be healthy enough to swim and not chronically ill or something, but am at my wits end to have come to the conclusion I may very well have to give up swimming. That past year I have been dealing with horrible sneezing bouts post swim that leave me sounding like I have a cold for days. I tried a nose plug for 3 weeks after reading somewhere that might be it even though I don't feel like water gets in there. No effect. Took a week off swimming and my symptoms abated. Got back in Monday and have been a mess.
Makes me quite bummed to think I may have to ditch my swimming...it's hard to stop something you love doing 5x a week that you have been doing for over 30 years. Would love to know if anyone has successfully combated this issue and how. The Googles has been a joke for solutions....all lead to 'stop exposing the person to chlorine'. We have zero salt water pools and I'm 45 minutes from the nearest lake.
Feel free to suggest anything....thanks!
Parents
Former Member
vo2, sorry to hear you're suffering. I had the same problem for years at my closest pool (local high school). Nothing helped much. I began to suspect it was the pool chemistry, because the occasional swim elsewhere caused no similar problems. More than once I asked them to check the chemistry, to no avail. I switched to a college pool a few years ago and since then have had zero problems, except...some months back, circumstances put me in the old high school pool for a day: like clockwork, same problems as before.
So it could definitely be the pool you're using. And it's not always easy to get management to clean up their act, or keep it clean if they try. Switching to a higher quality rig, if there's one available, might be the permanent solution.
If not, saline solution blasts up the nostrils right after getting back to the locker room might help. That instantly removes much of the chemical irritant and gives your sinuses half a chance of not going into the full-blown reaction cycle. Best of luck finding a way to stick with swimming.
vo2, sorry to hear you're suffering. I had the same problem for years at my closest pool (local high school). Nothing helped much. I began to suspect it was the pool chemistry, because the occasional swim elsewhere caused no similar problems. More than once I asked them to check the chemistry, to no avail. I switched to a college pool a few years ago and since then have had zero problems, except...some months back, circumstances put me in the old high school pool for a day: like clockwork, same problems as before.
So it could definitely be the pool you're using. And it's not always easy to get management to clean up their act, or keep it clean if they try. Switching to a higher quality rig, if there's one available, might be the permanent solution.
If not, saline solution blasts up the nostrils right after getting back to the locker room might help. That instantly removes much of the chemical irritant and gives your sinuses half a chance of not going into the full-blown reaction cycle. Best of luck finding a way to stick with swimming.
