Sinusitis, chlorine and swimming

blue banana

I normally swim about 3 or four times a week. However, recently I had a bout of sinusitis and now everytime after a swim, I'm all bunged up. It seems the chlorine is the problem. Apart from giving up swimming in a pool, has anyone got any useful suggestions? I paid my annual membership a couple of months ago, so I can't afford to change pools.

Thanks

Karoma

Wash it out with saline solution straight after a swim; something like NeilMed's SinuRinse is probably the handiest to bring with you.

blue banana

Cheers for that

rokossovsky

I'm swimming for years and have suffered that problem too when swimming in pools. Easiest solution is to wear a nose clip. The best type can be found in Elverys. Ask for a competition nose clip. There are others available in Champion Sport but they are plastic and dont last.

death1234567

Yeah nose clip FTW

miss no stars

Chlorine is a big concern and those with kids should take express note.

I used to swim at a highly competitive level until I was 11 and all the pools I trained in were well over chlorinated. As my fitness reduced post-swimming a few problems cropped up.

The constant exposure to chlorine damage my lungs as they were forming and I've been left with respiratory problems in a manner similar to front line troops during world war one who (sometimes deliberately) inhaled small amounts of chlorine gas. And no, I'm not exaggerating. As well as that my sinuses are constantly ricocheting between dry and cracking and infected and blocked.

For adult swimmers, wear a nose clip and try to avoid overly chlorinated pools.

For those with children swimming, choose your pool very wisely as you don't want the chlorine to ruin their developing lungs. A good rule of thumb is that if you can smell the chlorine, there's too much. Sadly not a lot of people involved in pool maintenance in Ireland seem to realise this. When people are swimming it also increases the surface area of water and as chlorine is more concentrated at the water surface, there's more chlorine for your kids to inhale. This is not so much of a problem for adults, but I think the actual statistic is that children absorb 8 times more chlorine as an adult would at the same concentration.

BraceFace1994

I started to get headaches in August 2007 and they soon came every day . i have been living with these headaches for over a year now.
i visited lots of very expensive doctors and eventually after an MRI scan i was diagnosed with sinusitis . i met a ENT consultant who gave me the strongest antbiotics he could for over a month. the prooblems persisted. i returned and he booked me in for an operation to clear my sinuses (endoscopic nasal sinus surgery) and hopefully cure my headaches. i had the operation seven weeks ago and it was terribly uncomfortable and just nasty:( i then returned after two weeks to get stitches and supports taken out of my poor nose. it was awfully painful and i cried!!!
now i still have headaches as bad as ever and my septum is crooked AND i cant even touch my nose or play any sports in case of bleeding or getting hit in the face:mad::mad::mad::eek:

AngryHippie

BraceFace1994 wrote: »

mad::mad::mad::eek:

Thats pretty harsh right there. Haven't heard about sinusitis that bad in a long time, I know people who got it pretty bad when I was younger, but rarely to the surgery stage (except one or two who got Polyps) Best of luck with it, keep a bottle of Olbas handy...

blue banana

Sorry to hear that braceface.

Since I originally posted I've been to my GP I take a few puffs of Flixonase in the morning if I'm stuffed up and I take Syndol for the bad headaches which definetly work for me, except the Syndol knocks me out. Both are available without prescrption.

DonalB

I developed this really bad last year when doing a lot of long distance training. (I started pool swimming 2 1/2 years ago). I tried all the sprays, flushing my nose, squirting things up it etc. Nothing really worked. In the end, I went for the nose clip (which I had avoided since I hated them). Took about 3 or 4 days to get used to them but... simplest solution often = best solution.

Also, sea swimming really helps if you are training in both pool & sea.