T1 Outdoor swimming - skin perforations

[Jennyninja]

I'm slightly tempted to try some outdoor swimming. In addition to the usual safety considerations what are your thoughts/experiences regarding doing this as a T1 with a number of skin perforations at any given time from MDIs and sensor - and water contamination?

 

[trophywench]

The water contamination feature is the one that would concern me most these days, frankly, even if I didn't have multiple holes in me! You can catch all sorts of things from ingress of contaminated water into the various natural orifices in the human body - without any cuts etc. (eg Ear infections, respiratory ones from nostrils, gastro/throat from water going in your mouth even though you spat it out asap - good swimmers who 'crawl' properly usually have their mouth at least partially open etc) I frankly avoid even considering the possibilities where the orifices in the normal human 'undercarriage are concerned. BUT 'they' do reckon it's good for us!

 

[Lucyr]

The diabetes holes wouldn’t concern me, an MDI hole heals when you remove the needle and there’s plenty other holes in my body anyway. I’d just shower afterwards.

 

[rebrascora]

As @Lucyr says, the sites where you have injected or finger pricked seal up straight away otherwise you would bleed because the pressure within the human body would cause it to come out. I think ingesting or inhaling is more of a concern, but that is the same for everyone so I don't personally see being Type 1 as an issue. Choose your swimming site wisely. There are quite a few people who wild swim just above the weir at the end of my lane, but it is just quarter of a mile down stream from a major sewerage works so I would be wary of using such a site, calm and tranquil and picturesque as the site is.

 

[PattiEvans]

If you were intending to swim in the sea I'd not worry. Seawater is salty and therefore a natural antiseptic, but I would worry a bit about a lake or particularly a river as they can be so contaminated.

 

[Jennyninja]

Thanks everyone. It is the sea that attracts me the most. It's reassuring to know our perforations heal up quickly. So I might just give it a careful try out in good quality bathing waters.

 

[Inka]

You might want to check sewage discharges if you’re sea-swimming @Jennyninja eg here:

Sewage pollution alerts

Use our real-time map to track sewage discharge and pollution risks around the UK.

www.sas.org.uk

Keep away from obvious sewage out let pipes and rivers entering the sea. It’s disgusting that we still discharge sewage into the sea.