Products to reduce chlorine usage/SWG/Ozone/Other Suggestion

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lesschlorine

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May 31, 2009
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Hello,

I am new to this forum and appreciate being able to post. Our son has been diagnosed with tourette's syndrome. Others on the tourette's forum and I myself feel that chlorine can trigger the tics although I don't know exactly what it is that is causing it. We are looking for some ways to reduce or eliminate chlorine in our outdoor pool that we use for about 3 months. I do not wish to use bacquacil. I know that swg end up changing the salt to chlorine but are you able to keep your chlorine at a lower level? I am also interested in if ozone would be effective and reduce chlorine usage? Any suggestions for other products? Thanks!
 
Don't like to be the bearer of bad news but if you want sanitized water in an outdoor pool then chlorine is it. BTW, this is the first time I have heard of chlorine triggering tourette's. It's been (wrongly) blamed for a lot of things but this is a first for me!

You might find this an interesting read:
alternative-sanitizers-and-chemical-free-pools-the-truth-t3025.html

Ozone will most likely create a higher chlorine demand since it destroys chlorine but you might be able to run at a slightly lower FC level and get away with it. The problem with ozone is that it is NOT a residual sanitizer and you need a fast acting residual sanitizer in the water. If there is an ozone residual in the water then the system is not working properly since ozone is toxic.

SWG's do allow for a lower FC for their CYA level since SWGs operate fine at a FC of 4 and a CYA of 80 while a manually chlorinated pool would need a FC of about 8-10 ppm for that same 80 ppm CYA. Then again a manually chlorinated pool with the proper (for a manually chlorinated pool) CYA level of 40 would only need the same 4 ppm FC

I just did a bit of searching on the internet and from what I could find was purely anecdotal evidence that chlorine is a trigger in about 20% of cases (from a survey of 51 people! Hardly statistically significant). The page that had the most information on chlorine also devoted the vast majority of the page to homeopathy so if you believe in that...

This thread in a Tourette's forum might be of interest to you. They had a pool and switched to Baquacil and saw no difference in the tics. Kinda takes chlorine out of the loop, doesn't it?
http://www.latitudes.org/forums/index.p ... &#entry787

Good luck, I know that having a child with Tourette's is not an easy thing. I work at a Deaf and Blind school with special needs kids.
 
From what I have seen, tourette's can be aggravated by almost any respiratory irritant. The primary respiratory irritant associated with chlorine swimming pools is combined chlorine (CC). CC levels are often much higher than they need to be because most people, including many professional pool operators, do not do a good job of maintaining their water balance. The "chlorine" smell that almost everyone associates with chlorine swimming pools comes from CC, not chlorine.

If you take good care of your pool you can get the CC level down to zero and more or less eliminate the respiratory irritation caused by the pool. This does not require using low free chlorine (FC) levels, rather you get there by using higher FC levels.

I don't really know much about tourette's, but I do know how to eliminate respiratory irritants from the swimming pool, and low chlorine levels will not do it. Ozone is also a respiratory irritant, so I would stay far away from ozone systems.

I do recommend SWG systems in general. They make taking care of the pool simpler and easier.
 
Thanks for your help! I am thinking of looking into a saltwater system. That might help us regulate the chemicals better. I know my son has had big problems in the indoor pool so we no longer go there. His symptoms have become worse so I want to make sure I do everything I can to avoid triggers.
 
In my experience, the tics are more likely to be triggered by stressors in the environment such as irritation from poor water quality. Although I disagree with a couple of the nuances about ozone mentioned above, I do think we all agree that a SWG and a TF-100 test kit will help you maximize your water quality and minimize irritation.

Try some outdoor speakers also. The music is a "neuro distraction" that can reduce the threshold for the tics (but not eliminate them).

Good luck

Lee
 
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