Sudden swimming pool chlorine allergy? Anyone got any experience?

[castille]

My DD (10) has been swimming weekly for 6 years. She enjoys it and is good at it.

But at her past 2 lessons she's come up with a red itchy rash on her legs and upper arms within 10 mins of getting in the pool. It's so uncomfortable she has to get out. Her teacher said it looks like a chlorine allergy. The doctor gave her an antihistimine tablet to take an hour before her lesson this week but it made no difference.

Has this happened to anyone else? It's so sudden! Does anyone know of any drugs or remedies that might help? She's really fed up.

The same thing happened to me when I was about 12. I was going to Saturday morning swimming training at the time. Nothing got rid of it apart from hydrocortisone cream (and that was only temporary) so i ended up giving up swimming for a couple of years. I swim a bit now but if I spend too long in the water and don't shower immediately my skin starts to tingle. I'm sure there is something nowadays you can take but back then (early 80s), short of smothering myself in vaseline there wasn't much that could be done.

It's weird though, I'd swum all my life and practically lived in swimming pools because I grew up in hot countries yet for some reason I only got this in a UK public swimming pool. I suppose they use more chlorine or something, so that might be what triggered it.

I wondered whether they had put more or different chemicals in the water recently, but I was told not (but they would say that). We're going to take her to another pool at the weekend if we can, to see if the same thing happens.

What does/did your rash look like? Does it subside quickly (after showering) or only with hydrocortisone?

My skin used to go all red and become quite tight and itchy, sometimes there'd be little blister like spots and patches of dry skin. It would subside after 48 hours or so except for once it lasted all week, which is when I got given the cream.

I also used to have to slather oil (almond or olive) on after a shower to offset some of the itching.

My Dd's rash and itch seem to go within a few minutes of thorough showering. She did say this week that it felt like her legs were swelling though, which is a bit worrying...

Mine got worse over time. IIRC the first couple of times it went a couple of hours later. I'm talking of a 3-4 month period between it first appearing and me giving up the swimming ( I think I started in sept and ended up stopping after Christmas), during which time it got progressively worse. I don't recall having any swelling though.

Well, we'll take her to a different pool and see where we go from there. She's got incredibly sensitive and reactive skin as it is so it wouldn't surprise me if she has developed an(other) allergy!

I really hope this doesn't end her swimming career, it's one of the (few) sports she really enjoys

Thanks Brangelina.