During our Monday night practice, the chlorine was off the charts high. Several swimmers noticed lung discomfort while working out (we did a 4000 yard practice in 1-hour; necessarily some huffing and puffing.)
That night, I awoke with a burning in my throat and upper windpipe and lungs. It's since moderated a bit.
My questions: has anyone experienced "lung burn" like this? How long before you return to normal? Is there any remedy other than not swimming when the pool chemicals are really out of whack?
A couple of years ago I heard someone mention that one of the San Diego universities was doing (or had done) a study on adolescents testing for negative lung reaction to the atmosphere at, or near, the surface of pool water .
The study was being done to determine if the atmosphere, within 12 or so inches of the pool surface (which is generally fairly saturated with chlorine ), could be contributing to asthma in children during developmental years.
I never heard or found out the results but common sense would indicate some kind of concern if one was exposed to these conditions over too long a period of time.
I actually complained bitterly the day after; allegedly, a maintenance guy had found the chlorine level low, turned up an additional gas jet, then never came back to check it. The lifeguard has a testing unit that has "5" as the highest unit--the chlorine was above this on the night I swam. The local health dept. closes down pools allegedly if the reading goes up to "10" (not sure what these numbers refer to), and the aquatics director at the Y assured me the level was below 10. I asked her how she could know this--and she said the maintenance crew has a more sophisticated testing unit that goes up higher. According to this, the pool was a 6 or a 7.
My lungs felt better today so I returned to practice. I got the lifeguard to test it--a 2. Swam practice without too much problem, though the air still had a strong residual chlorine smell. A local college pool, Carnegie Mellon, has ceiling fans installed to stir up the layer of chlorine gas that settles directly over the water's surface. Does anyone else know about this solution? It is a pain when you go to try to improve your health, only to assault your lung tissues with poisonous gas!
Not that bad but I do some of my practices in a women's health club and they usually have high levels of chroine and like your pool its indoors. I don't do the amount of yardage you do in a hour. Its more like between 2,300 to 2,800 in an hour and 10 minutes. My noise runs real bad from workouts after I swim there but its convenient for after work nite workouts than the public rec pool is.
Does the pool use chlorine gas or pellets?
Our pool used to use the gas until we had a leak. Several swimmers suffered from burning lungs, one instructor was off for a couple of weeks.
How is your air quality and air exchange at the pool?
It is not uncommon to have an allergy to chlorine. It begins with a runny nose and sneezes after or during swimming. It then progresses to upper respiratory tract infections. Wearing a nose plug will stop this reaction and allow a swimmer to continue to train without all the hassels from allergy symptoms.
There are several styles of nose plugs. Find one that suits your nose, and get used to wearing it. Don't take it off, as tempting as it may be. You will have to learn to breathe in and out of your mouth.
At first it will feel as though you can't get any air, but you will adapt quickly.
Happy laps.
"To motivate, add water"
"Fear is a reaction, courage is a decision."
respect your lungs,my grandfather died from lung illness and my father died from mesothilioma(asbestosis severe).lung damage takes exceptional time to repair.Simply put,if your local facility cannot be bothered to regulate chlorine ...dont frequent their premises until they can be bothered...partition them..or at least let them know that they operate an unsafe pool.Having said that i dont know how dangerous chlorine is long term but im very suspicious.I also am an electrician and regularly breathe in fibre glass...i reckon that this is not good either(usually found in lofts where wire is installed)
If the chlorine was that bad you might want to check with the management and if need be the local Health Dept. The fact that this could cause health problems for others that are exposed (lifeguards, spectators). To get the pool that bad the chemicals would have to be way way way out of the safe range.
that might be a little hard for Jim to do. The place ihe swims is the Sewickley Y where he is a member of their Masters' swim team. The Pittsburgh area isn't blessed with alot of pools available for swim teams to practice at during the day or evening. We've got a shortage of pools. Many are in schools where there is no access for a masters group in the morning or evening. The Ys have a majority of the pools and when you purchase a membership--that's where they expect you to swim. You have a limited number of visits to other Y pools.
Jim--have you tried hitting up the "big wigs" and seeing what happened?
If the chemicals were that bad then pool shouldn't have been open in the first place because it is a health hazard. The fact that Jim swimming may have done more harm then good (no I'm not talking about a lawsuit here) he swam the one workout and is now not feeling well and my miss a few more practices until he is feeling better (maybe maybe not - I don't know) common sense would be skip the one workout and only miss one workout rather than swim and cause a problem for you that might make you miss 3 or 4 workouts (granted it sounds like he has never experienced this issue before, but hopefully he as well as others are aware of it now, sometimes taking a day off is necessary whether we want to or not).
Well, I agree with Jeff if its too bad they should closed the pool and fix the problem. As for sharing with high schools,here in Tucson most high schools don't have pools and in the winter time they practice in the same rec pools that the adults use for earlier hours and later hours for lap swimming. I know that if a pool is at a high school its a little different but the high schools don't swim year round and have probably swim classes during certain parts of the year. Maybe, someone should mention that to the schools to open the pools for either real early practice to a masters team or late hours. You have to push the issue.
Cynthia--the high school pool I swim at is open from about 6am to 10pm Five nights a week. On Saturdays there are swim classes for the kids. It is also 50 years old with a failing pump system BUT they do keep the water "good".
The pool has some early time where the school district employees are permitted to swim, then the swim team comes in for their early practice. During the day--classes are using the pool. Starting in the afternoon--high school swim team, followed in the early evenings by the swim club (6-14 yr olds). There is an adult only lap swimming (and we had to fight for that for years!) from 9-10pm on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. There are family swims from 8-9 on Wed and from 7-9 on Friday. Literally--we pull in the lane markers OVER the family swimmers a few nights a week--the swim club proceeds us a few nights a week so the lanes are already in. Tuesday nights is ONLY water exercise classes.
The janitors need time to keep the area clean so we're out of the locker rooms by 10:30pm.
The community and the school district are looking to build a 50 meter pool (and a smaller training pool) but that's about 2 years in the future. Meanwhile, the 50 yr old 5-lane 25 yd pool is all that's available to the community from September to May. In May--the outdoor 50 meter pool opens. That's busy, literally from 5:45am to 9pm 6 out of 7 days a week. Fridays the pool closes at 8pm so they can rent it out and make some money. There's alittle bit of time for masters (but the coach left and is now in Indiana) in the early morning (sometimes with the high school swim team) but the adults get only 2 hours (1 hr day, 1 hr night) for swimming--no lane markers and you deal with the water walkers and water exercise classes.
That's about it for many of us in the Atlantic Middle states. There are maybe 2 50meter pools in the area--one at a college and another at a high school. The high school pool has a moveable bulkhead which has been broken for a few years so it's not used as a 50 meter pool.
You're lucky out in Arizona--good weather year-round and perhaps heated outdoor pools. The pool in my community is heated by God so late May is too cold to swim and it closes on Labor Day even if it's 90+ degrees outside.
And this is one of the better off communities in Pittsburgh financially speaking.
