Swimming-induced congestion

HI there, it took me a long time to figure out what was going on with me... so I sympathize with your experience! I swam in college for hours every day, and eventually developed a chlorine allergy. It got worse and worse and I continued swimming - thinking I just had a cold. But the cold turned into constant coughing and sinus congestion. I started going to the student health facility, and was there literally every week trying to figure out what was going on. I was diagnosed with bronchitis, pneumonia, exercise-induced asthma, you name it. I was prescribed everything under the sun. The only thing that got me through the night without coughing was codeine! It got so bad that I remember skipping an organic chem test because I couldn't get out of bed! This went on for about a year. I remember my mother suggesting that maybe I was allergic to chlorine. I laughed that off. That summer, I lifeguarded at small, outdoor hotel pools where I couldn't lap swim. So I wasn't submerged every day and my symptoms cleared up. That's when I noticed the difference. I had to stop swimming every day in order to be able to figure out the association - that when I *swam* (compared to frolicking in water just to cool off), the symptoms returned for the next day or so. I finally realized that my mother had probably been right. I later talked about this problem to a college buddy of mine who used to be on the school swim team. He had stopped swimming, and I discovered that the reason was because the same thing had happened to him. Lost his athletic scholarship - so tragic. Anyway - it's about 8 years later now. I stopped lap-swimming regularly and have always looked for other ways to work out. But I never liked anything else like swimming. So recently, I started up again. I find that if I don't overdo it - (too many days in a row), I can swim regularly. I swim Saturdays and Sundays and maybe once during the week, and the symptoms don't return. Whenever your immune system is challenged by an environmental allergen over and over again, with increasing duration and frequency - your body may develop an allergy... it doesn't matter how weird or how benign the allergen may seem - even chlorine. Allergies don't have to last forever- they may just be a temporary attempt of your immune system to fend off a "threat" that's intense at the moment. Unlike antibody-related immune responses, your immune system doesn't program itself to always remember that allergen and freak out every time it encounters it again. That happens with certain viruses and bacteria, but not typically with environmental challenges like chlorine. My recommendation is, sadly, to modify your schedule so as to swim less frequently, or fewer days in a row. So if you currently swim 3 days in a row - try going down to two days in a row, or skipping a day between each swim. You don't want it to get so bad that you have to stop swimming altogether. Good luck.

HI there, it took me a long time to figure out what was going on with me... so I sympathize with your experience! I swam in college for hours every day, and eventually developed a chlorine allergy. It got worse and worse and I continued swimming - thinking I just had a cold. But the cold turned into constant coughing and sinus congestion. I started going to the student health facility, and was there literally every week trying to figure out what was going on. I was diagnosed with bronchitis, pneumonia, exercise-induced asthma, you name it. I was prescribed everything under the sun. The only thing that got me through the night without coughing was codeine! It got so bad that I remember skipping an organic chem test because I couldn't get out of bed! This went on for about a year. I remember my mother suggesting that maybe I was allergic to chlorine. I laughed that off. That summer, I lifeguarded at small, outdoor hotel pools where I couldn't lap swim. So I wasn't submerged every day and my symptoms cleared up. That's when I noticed the difference. I had to stop swimming every day in order to be able to figure out the association - that when I *swam* (compared to frolicking in water just to cool off), the symptoms returned for the next day or so. I finally realized that my mother had probably been right. I later talked about this problem to a college buddy of mine who used to be on the school swim team. He had stopped swimming, and I discovered that the reason was because the same thing had happened to him. Lost his athletic scholarship - so tragic. Anyway - it's about 8 years later now. I stopped lap-swimming regularly and have always looked for other ways to work out. But I never liked anything else like swimming. So recently, I started up again. I find that if I don't overdo it - (too many days in a row), I can swim regularly. I swim Saturdays and Sundays and maybe once during the week, and the symptoms don't return. Whenever your immune system is challenged by an environmental allergen over and over again, with increasing duration and frequency - your body may develop an allergy... it doesn't matter how weird or how benign the allergen may seem - even chlorine. Allergies don't have to last forever- they may just be a temporary attempt of your immune system to fend off a "threat" that's intense at the moment. Unlike antibody-related immune responses, your immune system doesn't program itself to always remember that allergen and freak out every time it encounters it again. That happens with certain viruses and bacteria, but not typically with environmental challenges like chlorine. My recommendation is, sadly, to modify your schedule so as to swim less frequently, or fewer days in a row. So if you currently swim 3 days in a row - try going down to two days in a row, or skipping a day between each swim. You don't want it to get so bad that you have to stop swimming altogether. Good luck.