Why does my eye burn when I swim?
by Mithun Manna
We are into swimming pool maintenance for a long time now and its been more than 28 years of hard work. Lot of our clients ask us, “Why is our eyes burning while swimming?”. Initially when we were new in this business our thought was, due to high chlorine content in the swimming pool but this is not the actual cause.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explain that these symptoms in a swimmer using an indoor swimming pool might be due to water quality, air quality, and pool disinfecting chemical issues resulting in higher levels of chloramines. The chloramines are what cause your eyes to sting after you swim.
What Are Chloramines?
Chloramines are a by-product of the pool disinfectant chlorine. Without some form of pool disinfection, you would get very sick when you swim. Many swimming pools use chemical disinfectants to treat pool water, a commonly used chemical is chlorine (chlorine is also the chemical in bleach that you might use when you wash clothing).
Chlorine does not pose any known health risks to swimmers. Chlorine makes the water safer for swimmers.
When chlorine interacts with sweat and urine brought into the pool (by a swimmer, a pool toy, etc.), chloramines are formed.
How Swimming Pools Get Rid of Chloramines
Chloramines are going to be present if a swimming pool uses chlorine as a disinfectant and if the pool is used by swimmers!
The key is getting rid of excess amounts of chloramines in the pool water and air.
Keeping the proper level of chlorine in the swimming pool is the first step. The proper level of chlorine to keep the pool water clean helps to “balance” the water so the chloramines are destroyed, but just keeping the pool chemicals at the correct levels will not work if the air quality is not good.
The second key to low chloramines in and indoor pool is proper ventilation to maintain good air quality. Moving fresh air into the pool (and venting old air out of the pool environment) will reduce the level of chloramines in the air. The air flow needs to be set up to draw air across the pool so that all of the air in the indoor pool environment is moving and being replaced with fresh air.
If both of these steps are being used, an indoor pool should not have a buildup of chloramines. If it does, then the chances are the air flow is not adequate. The air might be moving, but it might be set-up to re-circulate through an air heater, cooler, or dehumidifier rather than being set to vent or exhaust so it does not return to the pool enclosure. If the old pool air is not being replaced with new air, then chloramine build up will not be fixed by keeping pool chemical levels under control.
It takes both good air and good chemicals.
One further step that can be used when there is a big problem is called super chlorination. The level of chlorine in the swimming pool can be raised to a very high level – so high that swimmers are not allowed into the swimming pool to swim – this is called super chlorination or shocking the pool. The result of super chlorination is sort of like super-cleaning the pool. Chloramines are removed and, once the high level of chlorine goes back to normal levels (it takes time, but the levels will go down as the chlorine does its cleaning job), the pool is ready to use and, more or less, chloramine free. Note that this only works if the air quality is good; proper ventilation methods must be used in an indoor swimming pool.
Another way to prevent chloramines to form in an open pool is to ensure that everybody coming into the pool to enjoy some swim time, they all must ensure to take a mandatory shower first to clean any body sweat. Also urinate before getting into the pool and avoid urinating into the pool water.
Source: ThoughtCo