Original Cause of Illness: Swimming in Polluted Water?

[Farmkeeper]

In the five months before I originally became ill with ME in 1991, I briefly "swam" a few times in the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virginia. The swims were both intentional and unintentional, as I was learning to row a rowing shell, and we were required to demonstrate that we could climb back into our boats. Since then, I have learned that that stretch of river is now (25 years later) highly polluted, and presumably was when I became ill. Raw sewage dumps into the river following storms when the city's storm sewers are overloaded. My first symptoms included a brief gastrointestinal illness.

Has anyone else ever wondered whether a pathogen caused by contamination might have triggered their illness? My hypothesis would seem stronger if I'd become ill immediately following an immersion in the river. In fact, I became ill following an intense exercise regime over the five-month period, interspersed with perhaps two or three spills into the river.

 

[BurnA]

In fact, I became ill following an intense exercise regime over the five-month period, interspersed with perhaps two or three spills into the river

There has been plenty of discussion relating onset to exercise on the forums.

 

[*GG*]

In the five months before I originally became ill with ME in 1991, I briefly "swam" a few times in the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virginia. The swims were both intentional and unintentional, as I was learning to row a rowing shell, and we were required to demonstrate that we could climb back into our boats.

Since then, I have learned that that stretch of river is now (25 years later) highly polluted, and presumably was when I became ill. Raw sewage dumps into the river following storms when the city's storm sewers are overloaded. My first symptoms included a brief gastrointestinal illness.

Is the River more polluted now or then? With population growth, some were good back in 91, but now might not be, depends upon how much money has been spent on minimizing non-point source pollution.

The more an area is developed, the more that when a storm comes in, due to impervious surfaces, that sewerage systems are more quickly inundated and you would have the release of untreated water.

There are Rivers now in Mass. that are better to swim in than 25 years ago, but I think it goes the other way some times.

GG

 

[Hip]

Since then, I have learned that that stretch of river is now (25 years later) highly polluted, and presumably was when I became ill. Raw sewage dumps into the river following storms when the city's storm sewers are overloaded. My first symptoms included a brief gastrointestinal illness.

Dr John Chia, who specializes in enterovirus-associated ME/CFS, has often noted that ME/CFS can follow a swim or waters sports in lakes. Enteroviruses are often found in lakes, and when people get a gastrointestinal infection from a lake, enterovirus is a possible cause.

Here is what Dr Chia said at the Invest in ME London 2010 ME/CFS Conference (timecode 3:30 on the DVD):

The patients are very intelligent human beings. They usually tell you where the answer is, or at least give you the right approach, head you to the right direction. If we don't listen to them, we don't want to spend the time with all the things they want to tell us then we pretty much miss the diagnosis, right?

So this is how I approached it in the beginning. So let's say that enterovirus is correct, then there is something about the patient's history that will actually fit this. So I took a detailed history of the initial events that lead to the symptoms for ME/CFS. And it's interesting: I notice a few things that have come back again and again in the patient's history:


Water exposure, to lakes, and rivers. Especially since Los Angeles is very hot, whenever there's the time for vacations, patients often go to a lake, for water sport, and they often become ill after they come back.

The patient will go surfing, in the brackish water in our LA Los Angeles beach. The beach looks beautiful, the water is pitiful, and the sewage line is right next to it.

 

[ukxmrv]

I was swimming a lot in the sea just before I became ill and I did hear later that there had been a lot of pollution there around the same time