Burning heart problems after swimming

lebd

Member
Oct 25, 2020
6
san jose
After 20 some years of public pool usage I decided to have my own pool so I purchased and installed an above ground endless pool 1400gl soft vinyl, outdoor installation. Trouble is, everytime I swim, within few ours, I feel chest compression and burning lungs lasting til the next day. The water was tested by Leslie(see attached) and it seems ok, I kept the chlorine level low. At one point I switched to bromine thinking that perhaps I have developed a chlorine sensitivity but no change In the lung problem. Did a pool shock one time. The only thing I have not tried is to swim in just fresh, untreated water to rule out sensitivity to chems, chloramines or vinyl fumes. I am at a loss on what it’s going on. The local pool technician has no advise, doctor says to use Albuterol(not a good solution for me). I am otherwise healthy and no virus present or previous asthma. The trigger is the swimming in the pool activity For sure.
Here is what I use to balance the water
-Pool chlorine at 12.5% 1/3 cup a day
-Ph down: Sodium Bisulfate 100% Spapure brand
-Ph up: sodium carbonate 100% Spapure brand
-Alkalinity increaser: sodium hydrogen carbonate 100% Spapure brand
Calcium: 100% calcium chloride even thou I understand it’s not required because of the vinyl.

Spapure chems came with the pool purchase. I keep the water temperature to 83F, covered most of the time. The manufacturer looked at the report attached and suggested to areate the pool prior to usage so the last couple of times I did open it up for 4-5 hours prior to usage. I’d like to say it made a difference but not really certain.
ANY help would be apreciated because at this point I feel like I am running out of options.
Thank you!
 

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Can you smell the chlorine? Someone smarter than me may back this up or tell me im wrong, but when I go to the community pool, I can smell the chlorine, which usually means its super low on free chlorine...that usually makes me breathe funky. If the pool store is accurate and your chlorine is that low, that may be whats causing your breathing issues.
 
Is your pool indoors or outdoors?

Your water chemistry is not sanitary with a FC of under 1. Both your water chemistry and most of the the chemicals you are using are not what we recommend.

I suggest you read ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry and Pool School - Trouble Free Pool

If you want to start fresh with TFP methods we can work with you and see if our methods used in thousands of pools works for you.

First step is to get your own test kit. A TF-100 Test Kits or the Taylor K-2006C.

 
Thanks for all the ones who replied. I do use the K1005 that came with the pool on daily basis and my results are pretty much the same as Leslie’s and free chlorine seems to be avail at all time. No bromine in water as I started with fresh water last time. Allen, I‘d like to try your recommendations and method.
 

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The key problem with your K-1005 test kit is the chlorine testing is limited to a max of 5 and is not very accurate. Our methods require more accurate FC testing and testing FC over 25 if necessary. For that you need the FAS/DPD chlorine test. You can add that to your kit with FAS/DPD Chlorine & CC's test

Look at our recommended water chemistry levels...


Also look at ...



Is your pool indoors or outdoors?

Is your pool covered when not in use?
 
I would add 15 ppm of stabilizer/CYA to your water to get it around 20 and raise your FC up to 5.

When you get your FAS/DPD test do a Overnight Chlorine Loss Test to determine if you have any algae in your water.

Download PoolMath and use it to determine the doses of chemicals required.

Change to using muriatic acid to lower pH rather then dry stabilizer. Dry stabilizer adds sulfates to your water that you may be reacting to. You need to decide if you want to begin our methods with fresh water or try and use the water you have.

There should be no reason for you to use pH UP or Alkalinity increaser. If you need to raise pH simply aerate your water for a while.

test what the pH and TA is of your fill water.

Have you confirmed that if you fill your pool and swim in it before any chemicals are added you have no reactions?

Use your test kit and post your test results in the format:

FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA
 
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The key problem with your K-1005 test kit is the chlorine testing is limited to a max of 5 and is not very accurate. Our methods require more accurate FC testing and testing FC over 25 if necessary. For that you need the FAS/DPD chlorine test. You can add that to your kit with FAS/DPD Chlorine & CC's test

Look at our recommended water chemistry levels...


Also look at ...



Is your pool indoors or outdoors?

Is your pool covered when not in use?
I believe I mentioned all this in my msg, thanks
 

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I would add 15 ppm of stabilizer/CYA to your water to get it around 20 and raise your FC up to 5.

When you get your FAS/DPD test do a Overnight Chlorine Loss Test to determine if you have any algae in your water.

Download PoolMath and use it to determine the doses of chemicals required.

Change to using muriatic acid to lower pH rather then dry stabilizer. Dry stabilizer adds sulfates to your water that you may be reacting to. You need to decide if you want to begin our methods with fresh water or try and use the water you have.

There should be no reason for you to use pH UP or Alkalinity increaser. If you need to raise pH simply aerate your water for a while.

test what the pH and TA is of your fill water.

Have you confirmed that if you fill your pool and swim in it before any chemicals are added you have no reactions?

Use your test kit and post your test results in the format:

FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA
I emptied the pool completely, washed with baking soda and rinsed. Let areate for few days. Refilled with fresh water, swam for twenty minutes and...burning lungs within an hour. At this point i believe it's the plastic faint odor i can still smell. This rules out sensitivity to pool chems. Hope someone has some suggestions before i get rid of the darn thing!
Thanks.
 
I have seen quite a few people posting about a product called Ahhhsome that is used to purge biofilm and other gunk from the plumbing of hot tubs. Do some searching on here for that product, as I would think that would be worth a shot.
 
Have you been back to a public pool lately? It sounds like you didn't have that problem there. If that is still the case, then you could rule out some sort of asthma that gets triggered by certain forms of exercise (like swimming), that might have developed since you were last at a public pool.
 
I have seen quite a few people posting about a product called Ahhhsome that is used to purge biofilm and other gunk from the plumbing of hot tubs. Do some searching on here for that product, as I would think that would be worth a shot.


Lets see what @Ahhsomeguy thinks
 
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I don’t think it’s the pool chemicals persay but the cc’s & other nasties allowed to grow from the lack of appropriate levels of sanitizer. I agree w/ posters above that you should do an Ahhsome purge / refill @ Shock Level for your cya FC/CYA Levels to decontaminate your swim spa. Most new self contained spa/ pools have biofilms in the plumbing since they were tested @ the factory then drained & shipped to u. These can occur in hours. This was likely only exacerbated by your bather waste & low levels of sanitizer.
Baking soda will not do much for biofilms or
legionnaires for that matter.
Also going forward you need to be able to test for cc’s on your own.
 
Last edited:

Ahhsome is a cleaner, like a soap. You use it to clean out biofilms from your pipes that even new pools have. After you use it you fill your pool with fresh water.

Here is @RDspaguy experience...

 
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