Hey all, someone on Reddit suggested that I post this here, so here goes:
I've had a hot tub for two winters now and am feeling a little frustrated. I use the tub late Autumn through Spring, about 5 times per week. Last year I had an issue where my legs started to itch, really badly. I put it down to having a kitten who regularly dug her nails into my legs and the fresh wounds being aggravated by the tub chemicals. This year she's a year older and jumps up into my lap without needing to claw her way up, so there are no fresh wounds on my legs. And still my legs itch so bad that I want to scratch the skin off.
I did some Googling and found that the common causes of this are some bacteria that live in hot tubs, or a chemical burn from the chlorine itself. I super shocked the tub to try to kill off anything living in the water, and waited a week while my skin healed (and the chlorine levels dropped back to normal). Last night I went in again. Afterwards I showered and made sure to wash my legs well with soap. After showering I use coconut oil as a moisturiser on my legs. A couple of hours later my legs were itchy again.
What am I missing? I'm fine for almost two months and then it hits. I'm using test strips and they're not showing a high chlorine level. The ph tends towards the low side of normal, should I raise it a little to make the water that little bit more alkaline?
Any group wisdom?
I've had a hot tub for two winters now and am feeling a little frustrated. I use the tub late Autumn through Spring, about 5 times per week. Last year I had an issue where my legs started to itch, really badly. I put it down to having a kitten who regularly dug her nails into my legs and the fresh wounds being aggravated by the tub chemicals. This year she's a year older and jumps up into my lap without needing to claw her way up, so there are no fresh wounds on my legs. And still my legs itch so bad that I want to scratch the skin off.
I did some Googling and found that the common causes of this are some bacteria that live in hot tubs, or a chemical burn from the chlorine itself. I super shocked the tub to try to kill off anything living in the water, and waited a week while my skin healed (and the chlorine levels dropped back to normal). Last night I went in again. Afterwards I showered and made sure to wash my legs well with soap. After showering I use coconut oil as a moisturiser on my legs. A couple of hours later my legs were itchy again.
What am I missing? I'm fine for almost two months and then it hits. I'm using test strips and they're not showing a high chlorine level. The ph tends towards the low side of normal, should I raise it a little to make the water that little bit more alkaline?
Any group wisdom?