Just after the winter solstice, it entered the so-called ninth cold day, and the coldest time of the year began. After work in the cold day, I went home to take a hot bath to wash away my exhaustion. My inner comfort and happiness immediately followed the steam.
Insight into people’s thirst for warmth in winter, various SPA, hot springs and health clubs also emerge in endlessly. About three to five friends will find a bathhouse to have a few drinks while taking a bath, or apply a facial mask and manicure. Such scenes will make them drunk.
However, it is not only human beings who desire warmth, but also all kinds of germs. The large amount of dandruff washed by people and the high humidity and high temperature environment are simply paradise for the growth and reproduction of all kinds of bacteria.
If you neglect hygiene, whether you take a bath at home or go out to soak in hot springs or saunas, you may be given some infectious diseases.
Mycobacterium avium and [hot tub lung]
If you go to see a doctor because of cough, dyspnea and other symptoms, the doctor will ask you after a series of examinations: “Do you like to take a hot bath?” [And don’t curse in your heart: [Doctor what Bullshit, do I like baths and coughs have something to do with wool.] Hot baths can really make you sick-[hot tub lung)], but few doctors think of it.
[Hot tub lung] is a lung infection caused by Mycobacterium avium. This bacterium is related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes tuberculosis. It is easily confused with influenza, tuberculosis, tracheitis or asthma in symptoms and signs, such as recurrent cough, shortness of breath, persistent low fever, weight loss and lack of oxygen.
If baths, tubs and other bathing facilities, especially the water inlet and outlet, are not regularly cleaned, Mycobacterium avium is easy to breed. During one bath, these bacteria come out of the water with the blisters and disperse in the water mist. With a satisfied sigh, they are deeply inhaled into your lungs, and the infection may occur later.
Although it is not transmitted through interpersonal contact, sharing unclean bathing facilities is easy to lead to aggregation of diseases. Fortunately, through early diagnosis, rational use of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory treatment, [hot tub lung] is not difficult to treat and usually has a good prognosis.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa and folliculitis
Folliculitis is essentially a suppurative inflammation caused by bacterial infection, usually caused by Staphylococcus aureus, and is more common in hairy parts of adults. Outbreaks of folliculitis have occurred in Colorado and Maine in the United States. What makes these folliculitis patients special is that their pus is cultured with Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
The staff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found after investigation that Many patients have used SPA bathtubs, public baths or swimming pools in the same several hotels, which are poorly chlorinated and poorly supervised. More importantly, staff detected Pseudomonas aeruginosa in bath water, thus finding the culprit of folliculitis outbreak.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, or Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is named because it is easy to flow green pus when infected with this bacterium. It is usually not highly pathogenic and its patients are mostly hospitalized patients and people with poor immune function.
Folliculitis caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa generally occurs 8-48 hours after the patient contacts the polluted water source. The more serious the water source pollution is, the longer the contact time with the polluted water source is, the greater the risk of infection.
The infection site may have papules, pustules or subcutaneous nodules on the skin surface successively, with inflammatory manifestations such as redness, swelling, heat and pain, and may be accompanied by symptoms and signs such as listlessness, local lymph node enlargement and low fever.
Folliculitis caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a self-limited disease, which can be cured by timely separation from the carrier environment, external antibiotics or no special treatment, but it may recur for a long time for people who have bathing habits or bathroom workers. If [hands are base] to squeeze pustules, there is also a risk of systemic infection.
Legionella and Legionella Disease
If you are still unfamiliar with Legionella, you should have heard of [air conditioning disease].
In 1976, a group of U.S. Veterans attended the annual meeting of U.S. Veterans in a Philadelphia hotel. After that, many people developed respiratory tract and lung infections, resulting in more than 30 deaths. Finally, it was found that the culprit was a bacterium in the accumulated water in the hotel’s central air conditioner.
As a result of the incident, the pathogen was later named [Legionella], and the acute respiratory infection caused by Legionella was called Legionella disease. Since then, most of the reported epidemics of Legionella disease around the world have been related to the unclean hygiene of facilities such as central air conditioners.
Will Legionella, which likes humid and warm environment, be spread by unclean bathing facilities like Mycobacterium avium?
In April 1994, Legionnaires’ Disease broke out among passengers of a cruise ship in the United States. By comparing the relationship between passengers’ behavior and the occurrence of the disease, investigators found that soaking in bathtubs, doing SPA and even staying in bathing rooms for a long time are closely related to the occurrence of Legionnaires’ Disease.
Further, people have detected Legionella from these bathing facilities and belong to the same type as Legionella cultured from passenger sputum.
Similarly, Legionnaires’ disease also occurred among customers of a hotel in Oklahoma in 2004. Investigators failed to detect Legionella from the hotel’s central air conditioning system, but found the pathogen from the hotel’s hot tub and indoor swimming pool. They asked about the medical history. Most of the patients had the experience of using hot tub or swimming pool.
Researchers said that in addition to lax disinfection, the breeding of Legionella may also be related to metal ions such as iron and manganese in bathing water, as well as biofilms on dandruff and colony surfaces, which weaken the disinfection effect of chlorine agents.
Sexually transmitted diseases? It is generally unlikely that
Many people worry that public bathrooms will lead to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Most sexually transmitted disease pathogens, such as Treponema pallidum, HIV, gonococcus and so on, its survival to the environment requirements are relatively strict, leaving the body is easy to lose the ability to infect. For example, HIV, unless infected persons bleed in the bath, and the surrounding bathing people have open wounds, otherwise they will not be infected by bathing together.
The reason why some irregular bathing places are easy to become hotbeds of sexually transmitted diseases is that people are infected due to unsafe sex in these places in order to attract customers and play a marginal role in pornographic services.
Therefore, bathing in a clean and regular bathing place will not infect sexually transmitted diseases.
Do a good job in prevention and enjoy bathing.
Taking a bath in a public bathhouse with friends and relatives is a warm and friendly thing for many people. Hot water stimulation at an appropriate temperature does have certain benefits in relieving body pressure and mood.
However, while enjoying the warmth and comfort brought by bathing and leisure, we must not neglect the sanitary conditions of bathing facilities. Whether it is your bathtub or public bathroom, you should try your best to use clean water sources, clean regularly and fully disinfect.
Before entering the bathroom, the bathroom conditions, water temperature, bath time, and one’s own health status (such as whether immunity is sound, whether there are serious basic diseases, whether one is in an acute infection period, etc.) should be considered, and doctors should be consulted when necessary, so as to avoid some diseases leaving a shadow on warmth.
Editor: Liu Yinghui
Author: Cheyenne