Hot Tub Infections

Hot tubs are great places for relaxation, massages, skin infections… Yes you heard right I said skin infections. Usually that doesn’t happen if the water is properly treated to control bacteria but by definition hot tubs have hot water and hot water is a great breeding ground for certain germs like pseudomonas, which is a bacteria that causes a lot of infections that are associated with water exposure. Now normally that water is treated with chlorine or bromine to kill the bacteria so these things can’t occur but if the waters not adequately treated and if it allows the bacteria to grow then you can get a skin infection. Those infections usually have little red bumps or even little red pus pimples on your skin especially your skin which is exposed to the jets of water that’s streaming against your skin because that actually drives the bacteria right into the pores or hair follicles. When there’s bacteria in the water, often a lot of people in that same hot tub are going to get the infection and that’s one of the tips off’s to where the infection came from, when a lot of people get the infection at the same time. Fortunately, it’s easy to treat with a topical anti-biotic and even if you don’t treat it, it usually goes away in two or three days. But even easier than treating it, is preventing it. So the next time you’re going into a hot tub, check with your host or whoever’s controlling or maintaining the hot tub and just check to make sure that, that day they measured that the levels of chlorine or bromine are adequate so there’s no bacteria growing in your hot tub.