<i>"Luckily, there are several easy ways to prevent things from tainting your poolside experience forevermore."</i><p>Okay...<p><i>"Always shower before entering"</i><p>Right, but I'm not the one with diarrhoea. I can't get everyone else to always shower.<p><i>"stay out of the pool if you’re not feeling well"</i><p>By the time you're feeling unwell, isn't it too late already?<p><i>"test water frequently if you own your own pool"</i><p>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 :)
The 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.
That is why you should shower before going in to the pool. At school we were always required to shower before and after.<p>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.
The 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."
I 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.
There is a very informative video[1] that also links to scientific papers about this phenomenon and concludes much less sensationally.<p>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.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32y9aYEzzo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32y9aYEzzo</a>
People 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.
Swimming 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.
I 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.
>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.<p>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.
Are there companies doing wastewater monitoring on pools for public health?<p>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.
I 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.<p>The smell/taste of public pool water is definitely mostly urine, chlorine does not smell like that.
How feasible is that mythical pool pee dye?<p>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.