What could cause a bumpy rash??

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superdave5599

Well-known member
Mar 20, 2023
250
Wamego, Kansas
Pool Size
30000
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
CircuPool Universal40
Because we have a pool, we've been having my 2.5 year old doing Infant Self Rescue swim lessons. This is the 4th week.

The instructor emailed tonight to cancel for everyone tomorrow, because she went to urgent care because she has some kind of itchy bumpy rash. Wife told me that last week she said she had a bit of a rash at one point too. (Though she was initially attributing that to the rash-guard type shirt she wears. I was already starting to suspect chemistry.)

The pool is an indoor residential pool. (Instructor is renting the time in the pool; she's not the homeowner.)

I've been getting in and participating with my son's lessons last week and this week, and on Tuesday noticed a little itchiness, and also did one day last week. I have also noticed the water is a little murky some days, and some days the combined chlorine smell is pretty strong in the building.

Not at all surprising to me, she told me that the local pool store says that the water is testing fine... I told her I didn't want to just throw them under the bus, but that I wasn't surprised. And I'd bring home a sample on Friday (assuming she's feeling better then and we have lessons then) and run it through my kit.

Just curious what could be so out of whack that would cause a rash? She is in the water for a few hours each day, but I'm pretty sure even that shouldn't cause a rash in a well-balanced pool!

Pool room has some sky lights and lots of windows, but I seem to remember seeing that indoor pools shouldn't have much, if any CYA, right? Edit: I see the comment about a little CYA being necessary to buffer the chlorine. That makes sense.
 
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An Overnight Chlorine Loss Test needs to be done on that pool. If excess chlorine is consumed then the pool is unsanitary. There is no telling what bacteria may be in the pool.

Or the indoor pool has no CYA and the chlorine is high and harsh. FC over 3 ppm is harsh without CYA.

An indoor pool should have 20-30 ppm of CYA to buffer the chlorine harshness.

Either can be causing skin problems.
 
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I'm planning to swing by this evening and grab a water sample. I figure if the pool company has been maintaining it in any way like it sounds like other companies do, then it could be that they have CYA through the roof or something, and there might not be any way to do anything good with a OCLT without correcting that first.

Sidenote: I'm really glad that I found this place right about the same time I had a scheduling conflict and had to cancel having the pool company out to help me open my own pool!! I knew things were "sus" when they didn't respond to my email asking what the actual levels of things were from the sample I'd brought in. They just said, "Please add two bags of salt and 4 bags of shock and bring another sample."
 
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Mdragger88 said:
I am not a doctor nor do I play one on tv 😉but this is fairly common in undersanitized pools & spas.
www.healthline.com

Hot Tub Folliculitis: Rash, Treatment, Contagious, Hives, and Symptoms

Hot tub folliculitis is a skin infection that occurs around the lower parts of hair follicles as a result of bacteria that thrive in warm, wet areas.
www.healthline.com www.healthline.com
Click to expand...
The article mentions it can be common in hot tubs and "warm" pools...

What constitutes as "warm" for that? The instructor says that it is maintained/heated to 82 degrees (though when I hop in, I always think it seems a little cold).

Article also says it is difficult to kill with chlorine. Is that assuming "normal" levels? How about SLAM-ing it?

The pics in the article do look pretty similar to the pics the instructor sent of her rash. (I won't post those without her permission!)
 

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I haven't been able to talk to the home owner yet to see what else might have been put in there, but I met the instructor to get the water sample and saw these in the filter room.

The instructor told me they did say something about her adding something about a phosphate adder or remover this weekend because it was supposed to help (recommended by the pool store) but they said they would quit.
 
Looked up the "silk guard."

Looks like it is stabilized chlorine.

My guess is the pool is way over- stabilized and the chlorine isn't doing anything.

Someone tell me how to do the diluted CYA test like I'm a guy who wants to make sure I do that right.
 
superdave5599 said:
Someone tell me how to do the diluted CYA test like I'm a guy who wants to make sure I do that right.
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Lol.

Mix 50/50 pool and tap. Use that as your 'sample'. Proceed with the rest of the test as normal, multiply result by 2.

If still 100, use 2 parts tap and 1 part pool as the 'sample'. Continue as normal. Multiply by 3.
 
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My guess is it's a nasty disgusting soup of who knows what from an ignorant homeowner and however many people are renting that thing out. I wouldn't stick a 10 foot pole in it much less a toddler.

superdave5599 said:
Instructor emailed tonight to cancel for everyone tomorrow, because she went to urgent care because she has some kind of itchy bumpy rash. Wife told me that last week she said she had a bit of a rash at one point too. ( I was already starting to suspect chemistry.)

The pool is an indoor residential pool. (Instructor is renting the time in the pool; she's not the homeowner.)

I've been getting in last week and this week, and on Tuesday noticed a little itchiness, and also did one day last week. I have also noticed the water is a little murky some days, and some days the combined chlorine smell is pretty strong in the building.
Click to expand...
 
Maybe you should offer to have the class at your pool & get a discount in the process. After everyone’s rashes clear up of course.
It would be alot easier than trying to fix someone else’s pool.
 
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I did think about offering our pool, though we live about 30 minutes to the east of this pool. (I work in the same town as the lessons.) I don't know that it would work for the instructor. Perhaps people would choose that over just cancelling the rest of the lessons if it came to that.

I have also sent the instructor the link to this thread, and I think she'll pass it on to the homeowner.

Ok, here are my test results:

CYA: Roughly 30 (The dot was pretty faint at that level, I would have to guess that if the tube were taller, it would have registered somewhere in between 20 and 30 and therefore round up to 30 anyway.
FC: 1
CC: .5-1 (It might have turned back to clear with one drop, but I wasn't totally sure so I added a second drop.)
PH: 8.6 (Yes, that high, checked with my meter and then the dye test and it was off the chart red.)
TA: 130
CH: 175 *

*The pool is completely tiled and grouted, every surface in it-walls, floor, etc). So do I assume that it would be treated like a plaster pool for the purposes of things like CH? If so, that is pretty low I think.

My guess is that the owner is assuming that 1 PPM chlorine is within the range and they'd naturally want it to be low to protect the babie's skin (I can see how that would be an easy conclusion to come to). So I'm thinking that probably the best bet would be to raise the chlorine to at least 6 PPM each day after the lessons, that would kill off all the baby pee and let it fall into an acceptable range by the next morning (though that should still be checked in the morning, at least for a while). Of course, using liquid chlorine to avoid adding more CYA as it seems to be about in range of recommendation for an indoor pool. Though maybe she could use up some of that bucket to avoid waste and still be in a decent range?

I also see on that CDC page that PH out of range can contribute to hot tub rash, though it doesn't mention if the bacteria that cause it prefer it high or low. I do also see that high PH can cause skin itchiness.

So I texted the instructor and recommended she pick up some acid on the way there in the morning, and add enough to bring the PH down so that she isn't having that be a contributing factor to itchiness.

The instructor said something about the homeowner thinking that a salt water chlorine generator was not recommended for their pool because of the tile. Is there something to that? I haven't seen anything like that here at TFP, other than if it were new plaster you have to wait a while before adding salt (and using the generator). This is not a new pool.

Also said that the homeowner was willing to consider switching to either bromine or baquacil (I don't remember which she said, are they different chemicals? Or is Baquacil a name brand for bromine?) Is there any advantage to that?
 

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