Open water swimming carries serious little-known risks

Peo­ple love to swim in open water and it is said that by 2021 there will be over 3 mil­lion peo­ple tak­ing part in the UK. But a new study warns that there is evi­dence of a link between the sport and a lung dis­ease called swim-induced pul­monary ede­ma (SIPE).

Age, body length, water cold­ness, female sex, high blood pres­sure and heart dis­ease are risk fac­tors. Doc­tors stress that SIPE often occurs in healthy peo­ple, and that swim­mers have dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing and are deprived of oxygen.

The exact cause of SIPE is not ful­ly under­stood, but it occurs when flu­id builds up in the lungs even when a per­son does not drink water. Peo­ple usu­al­ly expe­ri­ence severe short­ness of breath, hypox­ia, and a wet cough.

The risk of SIPE when swim­ming in open water is also not well under­stood, but it is like­ly to be a rare case, accord­ing to the Roy­al Unit­ed Hos­pi­tals Bath and Uni­ver­si­ty of Bath (UK) Car­di­ol­o­gists, who have treat­ed women with the con­di­tion. A spe­cial­ist reports.

“First report­ed in 1989, its inci­dence is prob­a­bly low, esti­mat­ed at 1.1% to 1.8%,” the authors note in their case report.

How­ev­er, once SIPE devel­ops, the like­li­hood of recur­rence is very high.

“Relaps­es are com­mon, report­ed in 13–22% of divers and swim­mers. should be con­sid­ered,” the authors write.

In this case, SIPE can affect the heart and lungs, as seen in the case of a woman in her 50s who did long-dis­tance swims, did triathlons, and had no major health prob­lems in the past. An impor­tant find­ing was presented.

Dur­ing an open-water com­pe­ti­tion, he stopped swim­ming due to short­ness of breath, and felt short of breath for days afterward.

She swam 3 kilo­me­ters the next week­end with­out any prob­lems, but a week lat­er she was out of breath again at 300 meters and start­ed vom­it­ing blood.

He was swim­ming in a wet­suit at night in 17°C water.

“When I was swim­ming across the quar­ry at night, I was hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing and real­ized I couldn’t keep swim­ming. , the woman looked back after recovering.

“As soon as I got out and unzipped my wet­suit, I felt my lungs fill with liq­uid. I start­ed cough­ing and had a metal­lic taste in my mouth. When I came out, I saw mucus. You can see it’s pink and bubbly.”

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*