Peeing in the pool is what causes red eyes

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Z7What

Z7What

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Mar 23, 2015
141
New Orleans Area
A friend of mine posted this link on his FB page and after reading it I had to comment with the info I have learned from here. Is my comment accurate, if not please let me know?

Red Eyes Caused By Peeing In The Pool

"It's not the pee itself that burns your eyes. A pool with proper chemical levels will not burn your eyes. There are also 2 different types of chlorine that should be tested in a pool. Free Chlorine & Combined Chlorine. A 3rd level that also needs to be monitored is Total Chlorine, TC is the added total parts per million of the FC & CC. FC is the level of chlorine in your pool that should be checked EVERYDAY if you have a manual feed chlorine pool. CC is a byproduct that's created in the process of the FC sanitizing the pool. CC is what causes the "chlorine" smell and can cause your eyes too. A pH that's to low or to high can also cause your eyes to burn. So basically peeing in the pool puts urine in the pool that the FC is trying to clean and that creates CC and that's what is actually burning your eyes. It's not just pee that causes CC to rise, any type of bacterial that's in the pool will cause it to rise. That's why it's important to keep your FC in range and that requires daily adding of liquid chlorine. Why chlorine tablets or granule chlorine shouldn't be used is a whole other topic. I have been studying pool chemistry for about 3 months now and have learned a lot and with what I have learned I would bet my house that at least 90% of privately owned manual chlorinated pools do NOT have correct levels and are NOT safe to swim in."

Wayne
 
You are correct in that the combined chlorine is what is stinging eyes.

However the artical is not incorrect. I says the same thing you do. I pasted a bit from the link below. So, both you and the article are right. :)

Copied from the link...

“Chlorine binds with all the things it’s trying to kill from your bodies, and it forms these chemical irritants. That’s what’s stinging your eyes. It’s the chlorine binding to the urine and sweat,” says the appropriately named Dr. Michael J. Beach, associate director of the CDC's Healthy Water program."

If there is a bone to pick, its the how the news headline is written.
 
As noted in this paper, the greatest eye irritation was found with 2 ppm CC (as monochloramine), but the salt level plays a role as well since water with less than 5000 ppm salt is irritating with the lower the salt level being more irritating while at higher salt levels even 1 ppm CC was not irritating. Chlorine itself above 1 ppm FC with no salt was irritating, but this is without CYA in the water. Variation of pH from 7 to 9 had no significant effect.

Since the salt level in tears and eye fluids is around 8000 ppm, it is not surprising that salt levels of 7000 ppm in the study resulted in virtually no irritation from the water alone or from moderate levels of chlorine. For extended time underwater, osmotic pressure causes eye irritation. Chlorine, when CYA is present, would not be expected to be irritating even at shock levels. However, CC (as monochloramine) is irritating, especially in pools with lower salt levels. There are other kinds of CC that may be even more irritating such as dichloramine and especially nitrogen trichloride.

Since the oxidation of nitrogenous chemicals in urine does produce chloramines, what you wrote is on the right track but the bet that "at least 90% of privately owned manual chlorinated pools do NOT have correct levels and are NOT safe to swim in" is overblown. The bather load in residential pools is low and even some urinating kids won't be enough to raise the chloramine level to irritating levels. Commercial/public pools, on the other hand, can have very high bather-load and don't need urinating kids to get that way and they can have much higher levels of chloramines. Also, if they don't have any CYA in the water, they can produce more of the most volatile and irritating nitrogen trichloride (though less steady-state monochloramine and dichloramine).

It would be more accurate to say that many residential pools aren't managed well with proper disinfection, usually going too low in chlorine, but the main problem that occurs from that is algae growth or dull/cloudy water, not usually eye irritation. I agree that the title of the article wasn't quite right, but it's explained in the article text where chlorine combined with urine is what is irritating.
 
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