I was so excited to learn our pool was finally converting to salt water. While I was swimming, the pool dude dumped 3 huge bags of salt in each lane. That night I experienced sinusitis -- huge thick amounts of mucus (sorry, I know this is gross). That was a week ago. I'm still sick - just tons of gunk coming out everyday, I'm really fatigued, can't taste anything. I haven't had a voice in 3 days (some people are happy about that!:applaud:
I haven't swam since Friday. Is this possible that the sudden onslaught of salt brought this on? I wear a silicone cap and nose clips. I'm trying to do this the natural way - ginger tea, and an antihistamine, but I miss the pool. This is a bummer
:doh:I stand corrected.
Elaine, your are sentenced, like in the movie "Ground Hog Day" - to take chemistry 101 until you get this right! Although, I'm thinking (like waterboarding) this might be considered torture. :)
By definition organic chemicals are compounds that contain significant Carbon (C) and often contain hydrogen (H) and other atoms too. Some (perhaps most) definitions for "organic" chemicals require the presence of C-H bonds. For instance, most chemists would consider Carbon Dioxide, carbon metallic alloys, carbon-fluorine (Teflon) to be inorganic chemicals, because there is no C-H bonding in them.
Being sentenced to repeat "organic chemistry" 101, which generally scares even the chemistry majors and is clearly torture.
Organic chemicals are sometimes classified as Natural Organic Materials (NOMs) (plants, animals, etc.) and Synthetic Organic Chemicals (SOCs), which result from the reaction of C-H compounds with other chemicals, either on purpose to produce a chemical product or as a consequence (byproduct). Some Chlorinated SOCs are toxic and/or suspected carcinogens, if the dose and exposure are sufficiently high and long term. As Karl pointed out some NOMs are toxic and carcinogens too.
In a pool the free chlorine used for disinfection (oxidizing the cell walls of pathogenic organisms and killing them) is also available for combination with other organic chemicals that we carry or otherwise add to the pool (from skin/hair oils, urine, perfumes, etc.). Note that chlorine is added to our drinking water too, and drinking water from surface waters contains NOMs (from plant decay and/or from SOCs in treated wastewater), which then allow for a combination of organic compounds with the added chlorine. There are chlorinated organic compounds formed by the combination of chlorine and organic compounds in drinking/pool water that are suspected carcinogens: trihalomethanes (THMs) are of primary concern. The exposure to these compounds in a pool is generally low, because we don't chronically ingest pool water. It does contact our skin (unless you are really fast), so showering after swimming to remove chloramines, THMs etc. would seem to be a good idea.
The chlorination process in salt water pools produces less of these types of chlorinated organic compounds of concern. It also produces less chloramine (nitrogen and chlorine combined organic compounds) too. It's the chloramines that cause the eye irritation and the chlorine smell we've all come to love.
:doh:I stand corrected.
Elaine, your are sentenced, like in the movie "Ground Hog Day" - to take chemistry 101 until you get this right! Although, I'm thinking (like waterboarding) this might be considered torture. :)
By definition organic chemicals are compounds that contain significant Carbon (C) and often contain hydrogen (H) and other atoms too. Some (perhaps most) definitions for "organic" chemicals require the presence of C-H bonds. For instance, most chemists would consider Carbon Dioxide, carbon metallic alloys, carbon-fluorine (Teflon) to be inorganic chemicals, because there is no C-H bonding in them.
Being sentenced to repeat "organic chemistry" 101, which generally scares even the chemistry majors and is clearly torture.
Organic chemicals are sometimes classified as Natural Organic Materials (NOMs) (plants, animals, etc.) and Synthetic Organic Chemicals (SOCs), which result from the reaction of C-H compounds with other chemicals, either on purpose to produce a chemical product or as a consequence (byproduct). Some Chlorinated SOCs are toxic and/or suspected carcinogens, if the dose and exposure are sufficiently high and long term. As Karl pointed out some NOMs are toxic and carcinogens too.
In a pool the free chlorine used for disinfection (oxidizing the cell walls of pathogenic organisms and killing them) is also available for combination with other organic chemicals that we carry or otherwise add to the pool (from skin/hair oils, urine, perfumes, etc.). Note that chlorine is added to our drinking water too, and drinking water from surface waters contains NOMs (from plant decay and/or from SOCs in treated wastewater), which then allow for a combination of organic compounds with the added chlorine. There are chlorinated organic compounds formed by the combination of chlorine and organic compounds in drinking/pool water that are suspected carcinogens: trihalomethanes (THMs) are of primary concern. The exposure to these compounds in a pool is generally low, because we don't chronically ingest pool water. It does contact our skin (unless you are really fast), so showering after swimming to remove chloramines, THMs etc. would seem to be a good idea.
The chlorination process in salt water pools produces less of these types of chlorinated organic compounds of concern. It also produces less chloramine (nitrogen and chlorine combined organic compounds) too. It's the chloramines that cause the eye irritation and the chlorine smell we've all come to love.
