All The Ways You Can Get Sick In The Pool

Playing In The Water Is One Of The Best Parts Of Summer

It's so nice to splash around in a pool on a hot day then run into the shade, rest and repeat. It's some of the biggest fun of the summer.

It never fails, every year, someone gets sick right after a pool day. It might diarrhea, a rash or maybe even some kind of ear infection, but someone always gets something. Why?

Why Can Pools Make Us Sick And What Do You Get?

From Health:

• Pools or hot tubs that don't have the right balance of chlorine or bromine to prevent illness.  It isn't necessarily neglect, it is simply measurements
• Someone who has recently been ill with diarrhea may have been swimming, and you accidentally swallowed some of it
• Hot Tub Rash from a hot tub that is not properly treated
• Swimmer's Ear
• Legionnaire's Disease

The cause of pool diarrhea, Cryptosporidium, can live in a pool for DAYS.  You can carry the Cryptosporidium in your body for up to 2 weeks after you've recovered from a bout of diarrhea. It naturally gets into the pool with you, and then spreads to everyone else in the pool.

Hot tubs are harder to control bacteria wise as the hotter temperature takes the killing power away from chlorine and bromine.

Swimmer's ear is generally in smaller children.  It's mainly caused from not drying the ear properly.

Legionnaire's Disease comes from breathing steam or mist from infected water.

While none of these are definitely fatal, they CAN be fatal if they go untreated or it happens to someone with a weakened immune system.

What Can You Do To Protect Yourself And Your Family?

Health recommends:

• Keep your mouth closed when you're swimming, even in fresh water
• Dry ears well, including tipping your head and moving your ear around
• If someone has been sick with diarrhea, wait for, at least, 2 weeks before swimming.