The Effect of Breathing Chlorine while Showering
I was born in 1951.After college, from 1980 to 1990, I lived on a farm with well water in Michigan.I had no lumps in my breasts.
In 1990 I moved to Marshfield, Wisconsin.I began exercising regularly, jogging and swimming at the Y. it wasn't more than a month or two before two lumps appeared, which grew. My file is available at the Marshfield Clinic. After a very painful mammogram, I had eight lumps. I had to have them aspirated and go back regularly for mammograms, painful because my breasts are so small.
In 2002, I moved to Ketchikan, Alaska, where the water is so pure, they do not have a water treatment plant. However, they do add chlorine to the water.The number of lumps reduced by half to four lumps ever present, changing in size, but always there.I had an ultrasound, available at Ketchikan General Hospital.We began drinking filtered water, but there was no change.
In 2005, we moved to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.We continued drinking filtered water.The lumps disappeared within a week or two of moving there!I had no clue as to what relieved the symptoms.I was under horrible stress at the time, working 60 hours a week, so I would have expected them to worsen, rather than disappear.One day a person at the water billing office told us that the water in Dalton Gardens (our suburb) was not treated with anything.It came straight from the aquifer to our tap. That meant that the only positive lifestyle change I had made since moving from Alaska was that I was now showering and brushing my teeth in clear, untreated water. I made the connection.
A year later, my job took me to Shelton, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. We continued filtering our drinking water, but I was now showering in chlorinated city water again.Within a week or so of moving there, lumps appeared on my breast.The only negative lifestyle difference was that I was now showering in chemically-treated city water. We immediately ordered a filter for the shower, but it took a few weeks to arrive.The lumps grew while we waited.Finally it arrived, and within a week of installation, the lumps were gone.
They did not return for six months, and I was sure I had found the connection. I wrote to breast cancer researchers across the nation with my story. Then, suddenly, I was horrified to find a little lump. I told my husband, and he said,"Oh yea, I forgot. I have to change the filter every six months."
So there you have it. I have not had a single lump in the ensuing ten years.
Comments
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Since the vastmajority in the U.S. have chlorinated water sources it seems to me that the cancer rate would be much higher if your theory were true. I looked for studies and don't see much that bears this out. The twelve or so percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer hasn't changed much in many years. Without chlorine we would, however, have a much higher incidence of water borne illness & death.
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I used nothing but chlorinated water for 52 years, then developed cancer. For over half a century, chlorination caused me no cancer.
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I heard it is manufactured (?) from sewage treatment plants
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You are incorrect Abigail. It is USED in sewage treatment. Not made from the plants. Chlorine is common bleach.
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Rutabaga, fibroids are not cancer. What causes fibroids is not what causes cancer.
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by product I heard "common bleach" is also a toxin
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I use whatever my town water is and really always have, I do buy some bottles occasionally
but I also swim in a chlorine pool several times a week. At one point I started feeling itchie from the chlorine so on the advise of my doc, I take a small clariton before the pool. Doc says I am chlorine sensitive not allergic
I do stay away from cleaning sprays like scrubbing bubbles and such, they aggrevate my asthma
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Some studies DO seem to link chlorination with various types of cancer. Pointing out that everyone using chlorinated water does not get BC is like saying because everyone who smokes doesn't get lung cancer it means smoking does not cause lung cancer.
The fact that today one in eight women will be diagnosed with BC as opposed to about 1 in 40 women who were born prior to 1940 means something as changed radically in the years since-the heavy use of chemicals in our foods, water, toiletries, etc is one very big and obvious change. Many of the chemicals routinely used today were not even invented in 1940. I don't necessarily believe chlorine use alone causes BC, but to say just because everyone using something doesn't get BC does not means that something doesn't cause BC.
I see this one here all the time-like stress can't cause BC because everyone has stress but not everyone get BC. It's like the smoking thing-unless you work for the tobacco industry, the fact that everyone exposed to something doesn't get cancer does not show that something does not cause cancer.
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The original post refers to "breathing" chlorine, and about lumps that quickly appear and disappear. Whatever that is, it's not cancer. The article linked in the post above is pretty much an ad for water filters. It refers to research that it doesn't reference or link to. There are no relevant returns on the first several pages of "chlorine + cancer" as a search on Medscape. On a Google Scholar search, there are hits for organochlorines, which are insecticides (not chlorinated water). There are also some hits for increased bladder, colon, and rectal cancer (but not breast cancer) in the most relevant results.
I'm not saying there's no link, but I am saying that empirical evidence plays as important a role in holistic medicine as it does in allopathic medicine.
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If a hazardous material falls under 3 of 8 classifications under WHMIS, as chlorine does, it just makes sense to me to avoid it. Bathing in it, inhaling it....we don't have a choice, unless we get rid of it in our personal water supply. Chlorine's cheap, so that's what's going to be used to ensure water safety. I'd rather it not and there are other methods, but nobody is going to pay that kind of price for clean water on a mass level. Bathing in it is bad enough but I sure as hell would think twice before drinking it. That makes absolutely no sense to me. I don't think anyone should ingest a hazardous material, no matter what the "safe" ppm is determined to be. To each his own, though. Everyone has a different comfort level.
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"The fact that today one in eight women will be diagnosed with BC as opposed to about 1 in 40 women who were born prior to 1940 means something as changed radically in the years since-the heavy use of chemicals in our foods, water, toiletries, etc is one very big and obvious change."
Not necessarily. One of the major problems doctors had to deal with historically is that women would not report breast lumps or uterine bleeding out of embarrassment of lack of knowledge as to the seriousness of these symptoms. Women of my grandmother's generation (she lived from 1907-1991) just did not take such health concerns to their (male) doctor due to the social stigma attached to it, so actual diagnosis rates for breast cancer prior to 1950 have been, largely, vastly underestimated due to the lack of consistent documentation. Let's face it, it wasn't so long ago that a diagnosis of cervical cancer carried connotations of "moral debauchery". And this doesn't take into account the women who refused to go to a doctor even if they suspected they had either breast- or cervical cancer because the treatment for these cancers in the 19th- and early 20th Centuries was pretty painful and not very successful.
When reading historical diagnosis rates, i.e., only 1 in 40 women got breast cancer prior to 1940, one has to take this into consideration. One must also take into consideration that improved screening tools find more incidences of cancer, which bloat the statistics. For example, many women with DCIS may never progress to invasive cancer. Because we don't know which ones will, treatment in some form is recommended for any diagnosed DCIS case and is reported into today's statistics. Prior to 1940, DCIS remained - for the most part - indetectable, therefore, DCIS statistics were never taken into consideration. Hence, looking at breast cancer historically, will always make it seem like there was less breast cancer then, but that may simply not be true.
In order to keep it in perspective, it would - probably - be better to view historic breast cancer rates as "reported" breast cancer cases not actual. Many, many more cases likely went undiagnosed and unreported. Also, women have a significantly longer lifespan now that ever before in history, which also contributes to the perception that breast cancer rates are rising alarmingly.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.2820741304/pdf
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200210313471820
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449359/
http://time.com/3822628/breast-cancer-history/?p=3822628?xid=tcoshare
Now, this doesn't mean that I am pooh-poohing the possibility that certain chemicals just aren't good for us and should be avoided. It just means that when quoting historical cancer incidences/rates, we need to consider that they may not reflect what we think they may reflect.
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There are indeed lots of things to take into consideration, but the fact that BC incidence has increased dramatically is not IMO in doubt-it's just a matter of exactly how much it has actually increased and of course, why? Even if you only consider BC rates from 1975 thru today the upward trend is very clear.
As the mother of 2 daughters, 2 stepdaughters and numerous nieces, I find the "why" to be an important question and not one that can be chalked up to only better screening methods//more awareness, although they undoubtedly do play a role in the numbers.
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True.
But we, also, come from a generation that talks about EVERYTHING. I mean, we let it all hang out. Health awareness campaigns have been aimed at not only at educating the public, but also in removing social stigmas and we've benefitted fro that. My generation - I'm 54 - is pretty open about discussing health concerns and issues with our doctors, with our families, and with our friends. We find empowerment and support in this.
But my grandmother's generation did not. If you developed breast/uterine/cervical cancer, your character and morals were suspect. There had to be a reason why you were afflicted in such a horrible way and - due to the religiosity of the earlier generations - it had to be because something morally was wrong with you. Moreover, it was considered "immodest" to have a doctor examine you. Decent women simply did not allow a male doctor to touch them.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2751202/pdf/milq_212.pdf
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Selena, that is really interesting article, thanks for sharing. I'm just a couple of years older than you, but I remember what a big deal it was when Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller "came out" about their BC diagnosis. Before that, it was not really talked about,,, I think things really changed then.
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Why was the original post deleted? I would like it back please. There were no commercial links...just a statement by a member of her observations. Are we just deleting posts we don't agree with? Are we really going to start this on this forum again? Mods, hope this is a temporary deletion.
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Exactly the same post was made twice on the board.
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I read this and posted soon after it came up but I don't know what the heck happened to my original response.
I said it read like an infomercial-testimonial for some product, but I never caught what product we were supposed to pay attention to.
Nowhere did the OP mention cancer, or a dx, just "lumps". In bold, no less. About 3 dozen times, over and over, till I felt like I wanted to revise the post for its repetitiveness. I thought was a spam post, and still do, rather, since the OP "Rutabega woman" never did come back on the board to respond. Spam/troll/whatever.
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In the interest of "the benefit of the doubt", the original post did not reference a product or a link. The latter post by someone else that did provide a link to a product may have confused someone into thinking that the original post did. Maybe, but I doubt it. Someone just got pissy and didn't want the post to be here. Maybe because it's a new member, maybe because they found the post questionable, maybe both. Not their call and on principle, the post should be reinststated because it didn't break any rules. Lots of women come on here who don't have a cancer diagnosis. Nobody goes out of their way to have it deleted. Some respond kindly, some are rude and bitchy, or ignore it, but ultimately, nobody goes nuts on the delete button. For that matter, sure, spam, troll, whatever. Point is, it didn't break the rules. I could argue that one of the most prolific posters is a troll, but you don't see anyone going around getting their posts deleted. That wouldn't be fair. I expect that same fairness in the comp and alt forums. If posts get deleted unfairly, by a self-appointed monitor, I'm not going to sit by quietly. It bugs me and the person doing it bugs me. So, instead of acting like a juvenile and "deleting" someone's post in private by hiding behind the "report this post" button because they don't like it and throw a hissy fit (which is what hitting a button five times really is) I'm going to do what I can to keep things fair. Mods, still waiting for the post to be reinstated.
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It got deleted in another forum as well, in a mod-generated post, which may be how it came to mod's attention.
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"removed by the community" as opposed to "deleted by the moderators". Some member running amok instead of being deleted by the mods.
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"Running amok"?
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Absolutely. I don't think either one of us have to pretend that it's not the same person again and again who can't seem to excercise any self-control when it comes to the reporting button.
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.huh didn't know about this. I was called a troll, 18 year old boy at one point, but my bullies for years always had the courtesy at least to use their monikers
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Leggo, I did not report the post, because I didn't really care enough. However, it was pretty obvious that the poster did not have breast cancer, and it was equally obvious that the post was a lead-in to a sales pitch for ridiculously expensive whole house water filters
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if it was reverse osmosis water ilters they'rensupposedntobethe best, wanted one for ears. or 2 but no plumber seems to want to install them & they take up too much room as well. some filters actually add toxins to the water. & replacing filters isn't something I'd ever do
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I didn't even know you COULD report posts and remove them. I thought the moderators moderated and removed as necessary.
Where's rutabega woman in all this? I wish the OP would weigh in. I' m guessing we're hearing crickets from the OP because of Momine's explanation, above.
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I don't think it matters as much "who" as it does "why". Often there's a legit reason, and I get that. Not this time. Plus, and I don't believe I'm the only one that this bugs, it's twice as obnoxious and rude to report a post that's already resulted in an ongoing conversation. That just results in stifling 3, 4 or 5 people. Please don't quote me on the number of participants. I can't scroll back to check.
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I don't want to get into an arguement over this, but reporting of a post by one member doesn't get it removed. I would imagine, though I don't know, that the same member cannot report a post more than once. It has been my understanding that several (don't know exact number) members have to report before it's "removed by community". I did read the op and although I found nothing of value in it for me, I didn't think it was a reportable post, however as a member I understand that I am not privy to everything that goes on behind the scenes .
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I just find it odd when this happens-people respond to the original post and then its gone and anyone reading it thereafter just has to go "WTF are they talking about?"
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