For quite a while one of my swimming friends has been trying to persuade me to try open water swimming. I've been saying i'm not interested but one of my concerns was obviously not being as near to land as in a pool and what if i need my inhaler. I'm not sure if he's twigged that cos he said ""if you're worried about your inhaler you can put it in a waterproof bag and down the back of your [wet]suit""
So, my question is - has anyone ever used / tried a waterproof pouch that was successful? I don't want to pay too much but on the other hand i don't want a really poor product. I have an aerosol inhaler rather than dry powder so a little moisture isn't a problem (i often leave it poolside) but obviously don't want it flooded while i'm in the water.
I have been known to do a bit of open water swimming as part of a triathalon (although not this year as I have found even a few lengths of the swimming pool hard) and I do really enjoy it. I have an aquapac bag (well that's what it says on it) which I have used for several years and haven't had a problem with. I got it from a diving shop and iI seem to remember it costing about £10. I think it is designed for keys but fits an inhaler perfectly. I found I could get it out of my wetsuit, take it and put it back again quite easily with eggbeater leg kicks. I trained in a large group with support from the side and on boats if swimming further into lakes where everyone knew about my asthma so never really had any problems. I really hope my lungs will let me get back into it soon!
I have an aquapac keycase for my inhaler and use it when I go surfing, so it's very waterproof (I have a bigger one for my phone(can also get a karrimor version from sports direct shops)). I think they also do a phone case with an armband but that'd be a bit more expensive. I can open it up and use my inhaler when on my surfboard or get to the beach/shallow water, not sure how easy it'd be to do this while in the middle of open water, will you tow a bouy/floatation/marker thing, (think it's pretty normal to do this around where I live) as that might help if you need to stop and take your inhaler. My inhaler gets a little bit wet when I get it out, but like you say it doesn't really matter.
I also have my inhaler on a string so I can hang it around my neck for when I do some of the other active things I do where I don't have pockets, or when wearing a harness which traps my inhaler in my pocket. To put it on a string I put an old skewer in the gas flame and melt a hole in the corner of the plastic and then thread the string through. I've got my inhaler wet many times and when it's wet have needed to shake the water out and find that if I squirt a couple puffs before I take any then it seems to clear most/all of the water and it'll work fine.
Hope you enjoy the swimming if you give it a go.
thanks lou that's really useful
I haven;t really thought about the logistics of it yet, i'm still very much in the shall i / shan't i stage and i need to get a (not too expensive) wetsuit, just had a quick look on sports direct and there seems to be a few fairly reasonably priced. I'll probably talk to Mike more about it before i buy anything but thank you very much for your advice
How about a sportshaler too? Not totally waterproof so would still need putting in a watertight bag i guess?
I had two little swims today. It's just so hot I couldn't resist. Well one dip in a pool in a hillside stream and a swim in the shallow part of one of the local lakes. Too scared to go in water that's out of depth as I'm prone to cramps. It was so nice and refreshing to swim in fresh water, no chlorine and I recon the water was about as warm as my local swimming pool
That sounds lovely Lou, I love being in water but the chlorine in the swimming pool makes me cough, a nice natural lake would be just perfect, nothing near me though.
i regularly swim in a pool (well there's 4 different pools i use regularly) but i very rarely go in open water
Over the summer i'm going camping and there's a lake near where we'll be pitching our tent so if i'm feeling brave i *might* go in LOL - weather needs to be hot like today though!
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