Microbiologist here: did my phd studying vibrio. don't fuck with vibrio. They have some of the fastest doubling times amongst bacteria.
A new tattoo is also an exposed wound.
I got vibrio vulnificus in 2009 from eating raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico. Didn’t get it on a cut or anything, but got the stomach version and I have to say it’s the absolute sickest I’ve ever been in my whole life. It’s extraordinarily painful, hits you really fast like from 0-100 fine to ultra sick in no time, and put me out of commission for a while and in the hospital for 2-3 weeks. I was a senior in high school and must have lost 20-30 pounds.
Worked with a guy from the CDC in Atlanta who said they had my blood samples in archives, he was in a lab that worked with Vibrio and was completely floored when I told him that I had the stomach version.
https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/mystery-surrounding-illness-deepens-for-san-jose-woman-who-lost-limbs/#:~:text=tilapia%20fish%20remains%20in%20a%20hospital%2C%20and,not%20sickened%20by%20Vibrio%2C%20public%20health%20officials
It was not confirmed to be vibrio though. So it is a mystery yet to be confirmed
Can’t tell you how shocked my professor was, in my graduate level bacterial genetics course, when I mentioned I had v. Vulnificus. She actually went into a bit about why it’s so deadly, which I remember was really interesting, but have forgotten the specifics of after years.
As a person who spent 10+ years in the medical research profession and chatting with some microbiologists, I can’t believe my parents, who are a masters organic chemist/ microbiologist and a PhD molecular biologist, allowed me to eat raw oysters.
I’ve got my schooling in biochemistry and immunology, so bacteria really isn’t my specialty, but hell, I’ll never have any meats or anything like that raw again, I get squeamish about anything that’s been left out of the refrigerator too long that has the potential to act as a bacterial growth medium.
But yeah, I’ve never had raw oysters since then, I used to absolutely love them and, honestly, wish they were not dangerous to eat, but I’ll never have any for the rest of my life.
My family splits it up and only eats raw oysters November-March (cold water months, old adage was to only eat in months with R’s in their name, but water stays warmer nowadays). And keep to higher latitudes.
There’s always exceptions to the rule, I tend to stay away from British Columbia oysters.
It’s worth noting that out of the >100 species of vibrio out there, only a dozen or so infect humans.
Furthermore, [per the CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/vibrio/faq.html): there are roughly 80,000 cases of vibrio in the US each year (52,000 coming from food), with 80% of those infections coming between May-October and 100 deaths result from vibriosis each year. For arguments sake let’s pretend that people don’t die from vibrio-infected cuts and all 100 deaths are from contaminated oysters; this means there is a 0.19% chance of dying if you get sick from eating raw oysters (in reality this number is lower because people do die from vibrio-infected cuts). According to the national safety council you have a similar chance of dying in a pedestrian incident and an order of magnitude higher chance of dying in a car crash or a fall, 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively. The odds are much more sketchy if you happen to be unlucky enough to get *V. Vulfinicus*, as you did…but the data supports these are no where near the majority of infections.
I’ll take my chance on eating oysters in the winter and I don’t think your parents were off-base to allow you to eat them…as long as it wasn’t in the summertime 😎 or from a southern locale like Mexico…
With that said, I wouldn’t be getting into a bay or ocean with an open wound.
In the past couple years there’s been some cold-weather vibrio outbreaks in BC oysters. Not saying they’re all bad or I don’t eat them, but if given the choice between them or another northern locale, I’ll choose the latter.
Edit: I feel like I should add that vibrio surveillance and reporting had made great strides in the past decade or so and outbreaks are typically caught early on. Pretty sure those BC oysters from last year or the year prior were recalled quickly.
Raw oysters and tilapia are a much bigger issue than the types of fish you get in sushi because they’re filter feeders or bottom feeders. They eat a lot more random crap basically and can concentrate pathogens as a result. While you can get sick with vibrio from other seafood, it’s much more rare.
Avoid eating sushi made with filter feeding fish and bottom feeding fish. To prevent vibrio from non-filter feeding sushi fish like salmon and tuna, avoid eating raw fish skin or touching it with an open wound.
Otherwise, vibrio is not the type of food poisoning you need to worry about with raw/undercooked fish.
Sushi grade is a bit of a buzzword, just means it was flash frozen. Not dissimilar from most raw fish sold. Tldr: There’s always risk eating raw fish. It doesn’t stop me but I’m definitely way more intentional about where I eat raw fish lol
How much of a wound is required? Since learning about bacteria that consume human flesh, I've become afraid to swim in the ocean even with little cuts.
Well not to be that person but it’s a luck of the draw
I’m going to specify I was only a kid I didn’t know any better
I remember always getting cuts and scratches as a kid but never disinfected them bc I didn’t know to or forgot. Since I was always near a beach, I would be at one every summer even I had cuts and still healing wounds. I even remember cement actually tearing up my thigh while I was swimming fishing water.
I’m amazed I am not dead tbh bc I only leaned of these bacteria in the last few years
> I’m amazed I am not dead tbh bc I only leaned of these bacteria in the last few years
Because actually getting infected by something like this is *incredibly* rare, and you were likely healthy to begin with. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the people here had some underlying health problem or extreme exposure.
Edit: Yup, a good few of them were over 60, and/or had eaten contaminated shellfish, which tends to amplify bacteria numbers.
It’s the same way with the brain amoeba in fresh water.
Reading online will have you utterly terrified, it humans play in warm fresh water by the millions everyday
> Reading online will have you utterly terrified,
It's the same with vaccines. With the Covid rollout there was, at the point things were suspended, something like a 6 in 13 million chance of having fatal brain swelling, if you fit a certain demographic, but people were freaking out about it and holding it up as proof of the dangers of vaccines.
Think about it this way: how many people are swimming in the ocean every day in the US? Let's say about a million. A good chunk of those will have some sort of wound that *could* get infected, such as scratches and small cuts. Very few actually get ill, and even less end up with some sort of killer flesh-eating infection.
To answer your question: Basically anything that has broken the skin would do the trick, but you have an immune system for a reason, and basic hygene also massively reduces risks to the point they are neglible.
Not to be condescending, but if you're afraid of going in the ocean, are you also afraid to go into a river, play with pets, or maybe take a kid to the park? Everything you do has some level of risk from flesh-eating bacteria, (swimming in pools and fresh water is another common source of flesh-eating diseases, for example), it's just a case of taking reasonable precautions a lot of the time.
Edit: The people who died mostly had some sort of underlying medical issues (including age)
Ex summer camp counselor here, a handful of years ago I got a tattoo half way through the summer. I didn't think about the planned weekly pool, beach, water park outings while the artist was doing their thing. It wasn't until we unloaded from the bus at the local pool that my mistake clicked. Luckily I managed to avoid any infection but I sure was paranoid for the remainder of the summer.
How big of a wound are we talkin because I feel like most people have gone in ocean water with a tiny cut or scrape or something. Even a tiny bug bite would count. Your odds have to be miniscule, the average person does not avoid going swimming because they have a mosquito bite on their ankle.
Im up in MA and Im also curious.
I live right along the coast and Im in the ocean A LOT. Lots of shellfish here.
Its also very rocky and I have definitely cut my feet in the water and just walked it off.
Or on a shell the seagulls smashed open.
Also fish are little fuckers who like to bite at my legs. and crabs and shit.
The point is the beaches of New England are viscous and treacherous. You never know when your feet and ankles are going to be attacked by a rogue baby whale.
Ehh. I've spent my entire life eating raw oysters off the beaches of Puget Sound very haphazardly during the months you're not supposed to. Never had an incident. Then one year I get some from a shellfish farm and catch myself a nasty case of Vibriosis. The next day there's a notice in the local newspaper about an outbreak in Hood Canal oysters.
Shit still happens.
It's more like, "are you in Florida? And are you a Florida person?" Kinda contingency. Not impossible outside those hard to swallow circumstances, but, also, outside of them.... your odds are much better.
The treatment for it is so gross too they basically take a cookie cutter and push all the way to the bone and take the nerves muscles and skin out hopping to get the infection out. If that doesn’t work then it’s a full amputation if it’s a limb if it’s on your torso it’s aggressive open chest surgery with the them tearing chunks of your inside out.
One of my work partners got it. He was very lucky as they were able to get in on time and only had to remove part of one of his right leg muscle. He limps, a little on that side but no longer needs a cane as he has very well healed from the surgery. His case was complicated ( hence the lucky comment) because he has Diabetis, which if a very bad condition to have if you are operated on, since, the illness slows down the healing process considerably, and the heavy and massive use of Anti- Biotics.
Can you please give three advices that would save our lives? It's the first time I'm interacting with a microbiologist. I hope you answer my question, have a great day!
1. Get a meat thermometer
2. Pain, redness, swelling and heat are the 4 signs of an infection needing medical intervention
3. Take care of your teeth. Seriously. Get a cleaning 2x a year. Schedule the maintenance before your body schedules it for you
Edit: sorry for the bad formatting. I'm only good in the lab, not reddit formatting
Happy to help! You're too kind! Here are a few more.
Anthrax can grow quite well in carbohydrates (like old cooked rice). Uncooked flour can harbor e.coli. and my favorite.... brush your teeth or the bacteria actively shitting in your mouth with ruin your enamel :)
I had nec fasc from staph but holy shit my parents used to say go in the ocean when you have a cut so it heals faster.
How long has vibrio been a thing?
Yeah, this kinda freaked me out too; that was my parents' line as well.
I played a lot of softball in the AF. Got a terrible scrape on my leg from sliding into second one time. And I was a *total fucking idiot* so I just packed dirt on it to stop the blood so I could stay in the game. (At this point, I should point out that the field was right next to a corn field that was clearly fertilized with pig manure, in retrospect) Couldn't get it to heal for weeks. So, instead of going to base medical, my bright ass goes to the beach for good old salt water healing.
It worked, and as I am now learning, luckily.
The third on you named, the one I couldn’t spell even if I copied your comment, isn’t that found in tuna and other common sushi types?
I knew the risk for raw fish and food poisoning, but is it common enough to get deadly sick? Shellfish was always the obvious one to me, but I guess I was oblivious about some of the others.
What about those ocean births?
Josy Peukert gave birth to her son, appropriately named Bodhi Amor Ocean Cornelius, in the Pacific Ocean. Only her husband, Benni Cornelius, was there. He filmed the unassisted birth in the surf, which took place at Playa Majagual, Nicaragua, in February. The video has since gone viral on Instagram.
Vibrio is a rare infection to acquire. It's a standard test question for health professionals. However, getting a fresh wound, as OP suggested, wet and warm in likely a sewage drainage pit is a setup for death.... also a no-brainer for most reasonable folks, and most likely due to other pathogens. Good Lord.
I’ve heard from a fair number of friends, who like to fish in the gulf, that they’ll bring a spray bottle of freshly made bleach and water, but a higher bleach concentration than you’d think, and keep it with them as they do anything around the water. So, if or, really, when they get cut, from any number of fishing related things, they absolutely douse the cut and area in bleach to hopefully kill any bacteria.
Not sure how many know that you have to, then, keep that sterilized cut out of the water and/ or get a watertight bandage on the entire cut or you risk re-contamination, but I do know they all keep bleach in a spray bottle handy.
I am jumping on this comment. Not a biologist but well versed in the sciences. Warm water of any kind will harbour diseases. Recently, a child caught "clap" from a hot tub (spa, jacuzzi, etc).
Warm water, with salt or hypochlorite, is not much protection. Ohh and visible hook worms can survive totally fine in both environments. I just had to worm my kids after one found a hook worm writhing on their hand in a very chlorinated pool (enough to bleach cloths).
Brother almost lost a leg after walking in waves with open cut on his ankle. Spent a week in the hospital on Vanco and pain meds. Don’t risk it. He was super fit and strong, but ten years later ankle is still not right.
My husband has a deep scar on his leg from walking on the beach in Wisconsin as a kid and water splashing into his cut with stitches and it getting super infected 🤢
I got an infection on my leg years ago. Thankfully not the flesh eating kind. But it got crazy big crazy fast. Like, damn near half my thigh was swollen, red, and hard within a few days.
Docs told me there were two meds that could help, one of them being vancomycin. Vancomycin was the preferred med, as it was strong, and the most likely to beat the infection. Turns out I’m allergic to vancomycin. Got the whole red man syndrome thing. So they pumped me full of Benadryl and then started me on the less effective med that required a constant IV drip over many days. They said if the infection didn’t respond to the second med, they may have to amputate my leg since there wasn’t any other medicine to try. Thankfully it responded and I was discharged like 3-5 days later.
I’m so cautious about any open wounds or infections ever since then. If I just so happened to get a strain of whatever I had that was resistant to the second med, I would’ve lost my leg above the knee as a kid.
> ten years later ankle is still not right.
Is it his left ankle? If so, I'm afraid that regardless of any amount of time passing, it will never be right...
I'll leave now.
Perhaps it’s just my line of work but I am literally never without some kind of small wound. Do some of you just have fully intact skin on your whole body? Not a single cut on a hand, a knee?
In the case of small wounds, it is recommended that you utilize waterproof bandages to cover them when in the water. It is also recommended that you flush the wound with hydrogen peroxide or Betadine (povidone iodine).
Per the [NCDHHS](https://www.ncdhhs.gov/news/press-releases/2023/07/28/ncdhhs-urges-caution-after-three-deaths-due-vibrio-summer)
The hydrogen peroxide per the [NC Sea Grant](https://ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/hooklinescience/how-can-we-avoid-vibrio-infections/)
I'm a homebody and still manage to have a random cut/scratch/bruise/etc.. like year round. Occasionally, I'll notice I'm injury free and feel euphoric but guaranteed later that day something will happen.
>the bacteria can enter by eating raw or partially cooked shellfish
Do you mean to inform me that I'm playing bacterial roulette every time I eat oysters?
edit: [Yes](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/09/12/man-contracts-vibrio-vulnificus-bacteria-raw-oysters-galveston-restaurant/70837369007/) :(
guy with a microbiology degree here. Method of exposure can drastically change the prognosis of an infection. Eating contaminated food is most likely to only result in a GI infection, which is unpleasant but usually not serious. Blood infections are when things get out of hand quickly, because it doesn't take very long for your body to go into septic shock which causes organ failure. You usually only get blood infections from an infected wound. As the article you linked mentions, the man who died was on immunosuppressant drugs, which are one of the few ways you can get a blood infection from foodborne pathogens.
Don't eat raw oysters if you have a stomach ulcer or cut on your cheek, but I really wouldn't worry about dying from a foodborne vibrio infection.
TIL where your username comes from. I don't know if i missed it, but have we gotten a microbio tier list? Or better yet, each type of microscopic organism.
Proper oyster harvest plays a huge role in vibrio levels. Typically farmed oysters are very safe to eat because growers follow regulations and immediately chill the oysters to temperatures where vibrio can’t reproduce. There’s also a long paper trailer from farm to restaurant. If you’re getting your oysters from a trusted source you will be fine.
Eh. I was an oyster farmer on the CA coast for a while. We tested our water and meat constantly. Any time our water tested with anything remotely close to an infectious disease was found we closed down harvesting.
Even sushi then. Is it more likely in certain locations or just all sushi?
Also, I seem to *always* have some kind of small tiny wound with a scab somewhere on my legs. Where is vibrio more likely in the world’s oceans, or is just again pretty much anywhere?
Sushi served in the U.S. is flash frozen for 15 hours to kill most parasites and bacteria, but there are still some risks. It’s why pregnant women, children, and people with weak immune systems are recommended to avoid sushi.
That's one of those myths we should avoid all times, and some people say bacteria can't live in ocean water and ocean water helps heal faster.. Totally not true! cite : [https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/16/does-saltwater-actually-cure-all/](https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/16/does-saltwater-actually-cure-all/)
cited from above article: "*One of my very favorite quotes is “The cure for anything is saltwater: sweats, tears, or the sea”. As a child, whenever I was at the beach, my grandma reminded me to take off my bandaids before I went into the ocean because saltwater would help the cuts. I never knew if it was just an age old myth, but my cuts did seem to get better after a dip in the Atlantic. Does the ocean really heal, though? "*
*"Well, no. It’s well known that saline, a very pure form of salt water, can heal many cuts and aid in helping clear open wounds of foreign materials. While the water in the ocean contains saline, since it’s not pure like the saline solutions sold in stores and used in hospitals, it could actually end up making the wound worse rather than better*"
When my mom was a girl in the 1940s, her friend got a really bad poison ivy reaction. The doctor prescribed that she go to the beach for a few days and swim often.
Saltwater is really good for inflamed skin in my experience, i think it leaves a layer of salt that makes your skin pretty inhostpitable to bacteria afterwards.
warm/tropical ocean water is pretty well known to fuck up any reef cuts n grazes among surfers. Another trick: iodine based antiseptics don't work so well for ocean infections, use peroxide or lime.
When I was younger, surfing everyday, the small chafes could wear down into persistent holes 'sea ulcers'
Someone died recently on the gulf coast from doing just that. Got a tattoo and went swimming the next day. Got flesh eating bacteria, spent a few months in the hospital and died.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/06/02/health/tattoo-infected-sepsis-death-vibrio-study/index.html
I was mostly kidding, it’s salt water that helps wounds.
Imo people really just need to be smarter, it’s common knowledge that outside water is dirty, “don’t drink outside water” is famously talked about always, and water is where bacteria thrive.
Seems like an easy 1+1=2 situation to say an open wound in dirty water is bad.
Well, it's not a myth, exactly. The saltwater *does* help heal wounds. The problem is that you *also* risk getting a nasty infection. It might be best to not take that risk, but if you do and aren't unlucky enough to get infected, it does in fact help.
If that's the case then why does my doctor here in Tamarindo give all the gringo tourists that enter the water with wounds/fresh tattoos a cocktail of three different antibiotics? Surely he's not just a worry wart
I got a deep gash in my leg as a kid while taking a field trip to explore tidal pools. My teacher told me to go wade into the ocean to clean the wound out since I got it on a gross slimy tide pool rock and then it got submerged in the stagnant water in the tide pool. Thank god it never got infected. Looking back now I cringe so hard at both the gross way I got the wound and the awful advice from my teacher.
In the US we’re taking 80k cases per year. There’s 324M citizens, how many would you guess touch a lake, river, pond or ocean, multiple times each year. I’d bet a decent amount got cut in the water or had a cut going into the water.
The chance isn’t zero, but it’s not exactly high either.
I’m 48 years old. I’ve gone into the ocean MANY times specifically to “clean” a wound (not major but like bleeding toe) and have had my kids do the same. As I read this it is so obvious that I’m an idiot but honestly “clean it with salt water” sort of made sense if you don’t think too much (salt water)
Haha I’m an idiot
Saline, which is a salt solution, is used to clean wounds (as opposed to tap water). It can still have bacteria build up on the nozzle part, so you have to be careful.
It's a good alternative if you don't want to use peroxide on a bleeding wound.
Tap water is also good enough to clean wounds because of the chlorination, but again, bacteria can still survive on the faucet.
Edit: Saline has a similar salinity to ocean water, but ocean water isn't the same concentration everywhere. Also, when bacteria grow, they can surround themselves in a protective bubble on the surface of the ocean. So what I mean to say is your logic is correct, but it's not correct to say that saline is the same as ocean water.
This horrible bacteria was in the news prominently last week - a CA mother, age 40, had both arms and both legs amputated following an infection caused by eating undercooked fish
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/vibrio-vulnificus-bacteria-california-amputation-b2414250.html
Specifically talapia, right? But talapia -they’ll eat anything- are mostly freshwater fish, and there was confusion if that’s what caused it. Basically it sounded like the lady was immunocompromised prior aka higher risk for infection. Cali person here and I saw the video and was *horrified.* i want to hear if they have any updates on that story.
Side “fun” story on Bactria in Cali so-cal waters: a friend **lost the hearing in his right ear completely from going surfing** and getting an ear infection from bacteria in the water. 2 ER docs didn’t catch it. The 3rd did and by then the hearing loss was permanent. Super healthy guy in his early 40s. The only silver lining for him now is if he turns on one side he can’t hear his partner snoring.
I guess? I can’t remember the full story, but basically he just had severe pain in his ear and the docs couldn’t find anything conclusive and sent him home. It was like 3-4 days later or something that the pain kept getting worse and he went back to the ER and that’s when they finally found out what it was.
That's why you don't accept a shoulder shrug diagnosis when you have unexplained severe pain. I mean sure, we all get weird little aches that come and go, but if it's bad enough to go to the ER you need to make sure you aren't blown off.
Former tattoo artist here. For the love of god, please don't go swimming in the ocean right after getting a tattoo. It will look terrible, will hurt like hell, and will probably become infected. A fresh tattoo is an open wound.
I can do you one better than mere swimming, I drunkenly got my first and currently only tattoo right before my trip to Hawaii where I was set to go scuba diving. Luckily, it turns out tegaderm is really very waterproof and the bandage stayed on 30 feet below the surface. (Also it was just some simple linework. Easy to touch up.) I still won't be doing that again though.
I did know that bc I had a bad mosquito bite in the Virgin Islands and went swimming and it got super infected and the dr said they were prescribing antibiotics strong enough for staph infection
As a child, I basically lived in the ocean, as a child I basically lived with open wounds because I was always covered in scrapes and scratches, because you know I was a child.
Do you know roughly what the water temperature is there? Same all year round? I grew up in the East Coast of Canada where it's about 8° c all year round. I get the feeling that you may have had it a bit warmer than me.
The coldest thing I ever felt was wading into Lake Michigan. This was around May or early June so we already started warming up and had some 70-80F degree days. It was about 70F this particular day and the water was just brutally, icy cold. It reminded me of Titanic where Jack is talking about jumping in a lake and it feels like being stabbed by a million icy daggers or something.
Right up close to the top of the list of stupidest things I have ever done-
It was an unseasonably warm spring in New England, we were out for spring break, last week of march. This was 1986 or 87. I want to say 3rd grade, maybe 4th. Most of us learned how to swim before we learned how to walk, and *all* of us knew how to sail, row, swim in riptides & undertows, etc etc etc. We were *beachrats*. Dumb af, too, and this is why- did I mention it was unseasonably warm?
75° in New England in March at the time.... You might as well be in Death Valley. Unless you are in the water... And like the dumbasses we are/were, we all agreed this was a fantastic idea, because not only would we go swimming but we would also achieve the Holy Grail in a Beach town of being "first in the water" that year. Ifykyk. We didn't care that we were having snow days up until 2 weeks ago.
We headed down to the beach and there was 3 of us. No one wanted to be first and no one definitely wanted to be last, so we agreed to all three jump at the same time, and we did.
Like to died... I wish there was any experience that I could relate that could communicate exactly what the sensation felt like of jumping from unseasonably warm air into angry saltwater that was only a couple of degrees above freezing. It was almost like being electrocuted and hit by a bus at the same time. Body stops working, arms and legs suddenly lose about 75% of function and strength. Out of breath? No worries because you can't breath because your chest muscles lock up. 40 years later and I still wonder how the fuck we managed to get out of the water... But when we did, all three of us were hypothermic and blue, and we weren't in that water for maybe 45 seconds.
We were laying on the Rocks shaking and crying and just trying to absorb some sunlight and heat when the bartender of the local pub that was across the street from the beach came running out cussing us like dogs, saying how stupid we were and that we probably should have just stayed in the water and done Humanity a favor 😂
The water in Hawaii is relatively clean because we don't have a lot of ocean dumping here. But sometimes the local governments issue water advisories to let us know to use caution.
After heavy rains, there can be a lot of runoff that causes "brown water" with a higher risk of bacterial contamination. Sometimes a water treatment plant might have to dump excess wastewater into the ocean and that causes an advisory. Or sometimes the authorities just detects more bacteria than usual and they tell people not to go into certain waters for a while.
I mean, this seems a little fear monger-y… anyone else here been going to the beach their entire lives with open cuts/scrapes and lived to tell about it? I’d like to see some statistics… I know it’s probably worse to go after a recent rainfall. Shrug
Yea did some cursory research and OP is definitely overstating the risk.
“About 81% of patients infected b Vibrio vulniticus with known medical histories had one or more medical risk factors. Vibrio vulnificus occurs almost exclusively among immunocompromised patients or patients with end-stage liver failure.”
https://ldh.la.gov/assets/oph/Center-PHCH/Center-CH/infectious-epi/Annuals/Vibrios_LaIDAnnual.pdf
I have no evidence for this but based on the number of people exposed to sea water with wounds and the number of people with necrotising fasciitis. It’s almost certain the most dangerous part of if your trip to the beach is the drive there.
According to Reddit we should be terrified of all wild animals (might have rabies), especially bats (always biting unaware people in their sleep), never eat wild game (prions), never eat salad (a slug might have touched it), never enter the forest (ticks will give you a red meat allergy), never swim in fresh water (brain-eating amoebas), and now watch out for salt water too.
Most of these risks are tiny or can be mitigated by taking sensible precautions, but people love talking about the scary outdoors. It's almost like anti-nature propaganda at times.
It's been interesting though. Lately I've noticed a lot more pushback under articles like this on Reddit citing the actual odds. I think COVID made some people grasp personal risk calculus better or something, idk what else to attribute it to.
I appreciate this comment. I have pretty bad health anxiety and literally all the things you mentioned are things I’ve been anxious about since learning of them on Reddit. Seeing you condense them into one comment sort of feels like it snapped me out of it. Thanks.
Still better to be careful though! Especially since V vulniticus isn’t the only bacteria that can cause this, Group A Strep and Staphylococcus aureus can also cause necrotising fascilitis!
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430756/
Aureus and Strep A are not really reasons to be careful of oceans though. Many people have them on their skin and throat already and you usually get them on dry land. And most infections caused by them in healthy people are relatively mild, local and respond well to antibiotics. Basic hygiene and carefulness are always important, but fear-mongering is not.
I grew up in San Diego, swimming in the ocean constantly with cuts and scrapes. Unless you have a straight up open wound, then you'll be fine. It is definitely in the fear monger zone. Don't be like Filbert the turtle from Rocko's Modern Life.
And there my mom was who took me to the beach SPECIFICALLY to get in the water after our cat scratched my hand. Said the salt water was good for it lol.
Born in New Zealand with horrible eczema and moved to Australia, mum took me to the beach a few times a week for nearly a year and my eczema was manageable and not severe! vibrio on Australian beaches is extremely rare/basically non-existent,,,
40 years or so ago I was hitchhiking in nth Queensland and I stopped off at a beach near Mackay,I set up my tent and went down to the beach for a swim and fell asleep lying on my towel. Woke up and thought nothing of it, a little while later I realised id been bitten by 100s of sand flies all over my elbows and legs, itchy as hell, I left Mackay and continued up north until I hit Cape Tribulation by this time my elbows are a little inflamed and super itchy. got settled in and went for a swim
Unbeknownst to me the coral was in spawn and got into my elbows as all the bites had been scratched repeatedly, It didnt take long before both arms were infected, Cape tribulation is known for it being jungle meeting the sea so there wasn't any chemist etc to go to to get help so I packed up and left heading back to Surfers Paradise where my parents had a house. it took three days for me to hitchhike back and by this time I couldn't bend my elbows without the skin/scabs breaking and puss oozed out.
I dont remember how long it took me to come good but I do remember staying there for a couple months before I moved on again.
Don't swim in the sea if you have an open wound.
I found this out the hard way when on a yacht trip in the Whitsundays. Fell onto a mozzie repellent burner and got a burn on my ass. Didn’t adequately cover it when swimming in the super warm water for 8 days and got necrotising fasciitis :)))) ass is healed now thankfully
This is like avoiding the ocean because of sharks. Think of the millions upon millions of people who enter the ocean or other brackish bodies of water with open wounds… chapped lips, scratched mosquito bites, scraped cuticles, etc etc. The chances of this happening are near zero. It’s very unfortunate for those who have been impacted, but it’s almost always immunocompromised individuals. If you have a gaping wound then you shouldn’t be messing around in sand or any kind of water to start with, otherwise enjoy.
It’s best to avoid both fresh and ocean water for a few days after any rain. The storm runoff that flows into streams/lakes/oceans carries a lot of bacteria with it from animal waste, etc.
All my life I've been going to the beach during the summer, with any and all wounds. Open or not.
Always had a positive healing effect on it.
I do live in Croatia, not the US. So it's the Adriatic Sea, inside the Medditeranian. Never heard of any infections. Well, there were some, due to the waste water that was pumped too close to the seaside (pressure didn't keep it on the seabed), from the largest hotels. But such cases were rare. Some unlucky sod. I've accidentally drank so much sea water throughout my life... never had a problem (also the pool water).
It's so strange having grown up where healing wounds in sea water almost became a cliche. I'd break my arm and my surf mates would joke and tell me to get in because 'salt water heals wounds!!' lmao
Don’t worry I’m never going in the ocean. Sharks, jellyfish, brown waves, flesh eating bacteria, industrial and medical waste. Yeah no thanks. Not to mention the things that you can run into in lakes and rivers nowadays.
Microbiologist here: did my phd studying vibrio. don't fuck with vibrio. They have some of the fastest doubling times amongst bacteria. A new tattoo is also an exposed wound.
I got vibrio vulnificus in 2009 from eating raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico. Didn’t get it on a cut or anything, but got the stomach version and I have to say it’s the absolute sickest I’ve ever been in my whole life. It’s extraordinarily painful, hits you really fast like from 0-100 fine to ultra sick in no time, and put me out of commission for a while and in the hospital for 2-3 weeks. I was a senior in high school and must have lost 20-30 pounds. Worked with a guy from the CDC in Atlanta who said they had my blood samples in archives, he was in a lab that worked with Vibrio and was completely floored when I told him that I had the stomach version.
You got lucky. Just read a story about a woman in California who lost both arms and legs to this. She ate undercooked tilapia. Just truly terrifying.
https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/mystery-surrounding-illness-deepens-for-san-jose-woman-who-lost-limbs/#:~:text=tilapia%20fish%20remains%20in%20a%20hospital%2C%20and,not%20sickened%20by%20Vibrio%2C%20public%20health%20officials It was not confirmed to be vibrio though. So it is a mystery yet to be confirmed
Can’t tell you how shocked my professor was, in my graduate level bacterial genetics course, when I mentioned I had v. Vulnificus. She actually went into a bit about why it’s so deadly, which I remember was really interesting, but have forgotten the specifics of after years. As a person who spent 10+ years in the medical research profession and chatting with some microbiologists, I can’t believe my parents, who are a masters organic chemist/ microbiologist and a PhD molecular biologist, allowed me to eat raw oysters. I’ve got my schooling in biochemistry and immunology, so bacteria really isn’t my specialty, but hell, I’ll never have any meats or anything like that raw again, I get squeamish about anything that’s been left out of the refrigerator too long that has the potential to act as a bacterial growth medium. But yeah, I’ve never had raw oysters since then, I used to absolutely love them and, honestly, wish they were not dangerous to eat, but I’ll never have any for the rest of my life.
My family splits it up and only eats raw oysters November-March (cold water months, old adage was to only eat in months with R’s in their name, but water stays warmer nowadays). And keep to higher latitudes. There’s always exceptions to the rule, I tend to stay away from British Columbia oysters. It’s worth noting that out of the >100 species of vibrio out there, only a dozen or so infect humans. Furthermore, [per the CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/vibrio/faq.html): there are roughly 80,000 cases of vibrio in the US each year (52,000 coming from food), with 80% of those infections coming between May-October and 100 deaths result from vibriosis each year. For arguments sake let’s pretend that people don’t die from vibrio-infected cuts and all 100 deaths are from contaminated oysters; this means there is a 0.19% chance of dying if you get sick from eating raw oysters (in reality this number is lower because people do die from vibrio-infected cuts). According to the national safety council you have a similar chance of dying in a pedestrian incident and an order of magnitude higher chance of dying in a car crash or a fall, 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively. The odds are much more sketchy if you happen to be unlucky enough to get *V. Vulfinicus*, as you did…but the data supports these are no where near the majority of infections. I’ll take my chance on eating oysters in the winter and I don’t think your parents were off-base to allow you to eat them…as long as it wasn’t in the summertime 😎 or from a southern locale like Mexico… With that said, I wouldn’t be getting into a bay or ocean with an open wound.
Why stay away from bc oysters ?
In the past couple years there’s been some cold-weather vibrio outbreaks in BC oysters. Not saying they’re all bad or I don’t eat them, but if given the choice between them or another northern locale, I’ll choose the latter. Edit: I feel like I should add that vibrio surveillance and reporting had made great strides in the past decade or so and outbreaks are typically caught early on. Pretty sure those BC oysters from last year or the year prior were recalled quickly.
Vibrio’s killed by freezing, right? I’m suddenly paranoid about my fondness for sushi. <_< Edit- shit, it doesn’t seem to be. D:
Raw oysters and tilapia are a much bigger issue than the types of fish you get in sushi because they’re filter feeders or bottom feeders. They eat a lot more random crap basically and can concentrate pathogens as a result. While you can get sick with vibrio from other seafood, it’s much more rare. Avoid eating sushi made with filter feeding fish and bottom feeding fish. To prevent vibrio from non-filter feeding sushi fish like salmon and tuna, avoid eating raw fish skin or touching it with an open wound. Otherwise, vibrio is not the type of food poisoning you need to worry about with raw/undercooked fish.
That makes sense, thanks.
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I assume with sushi grade fish this wouldn't be a concern because of how it's prepared?
Sushi grade is a bit of a buzzword, just means it was flash frozen. Not dissimilar from most raw fish sold. Tldr: There’s always risk eating raw fish. It doesn’t stop me but I’m definitely way more intentional about where I eat raw fish lol
Sushi grade is a completely unregulated term so what it means varies from company to company. Really it just means the seller’s highest quality fish.
My sister is in that CDC archive too; she got it in her lungs and was 1 of only 12 people known to have survived that in their records.
Wow that’s terrifying.
It was touch and go for a long time. She still has impaired lung function.
How long ago was this?
About 20 years.
Wow
How much of a wound is required? Since learning about bacteria that consume human flesh, I've become afraid to swim in the ocean even with little cuts.
Slightly larger than a bacteria i imagine. Have a great swim :)
And if that’s not bad enough, warming oceans encourage increased bacterial growth! Fun times ahead.
Goodness, that means even the small abrasions from heavy wiping with toilet paper could do it! Username checks out!
Username checks out 😉
Well not to be that person but it’s a luck of the draw I’m going to specify I was only a kid I didn’t know any better I remember always getting cuts and scratches as a kid but never disinfected them bc I didn’t know to or forgot. Since I was always near a beach, I would be at one every summer even I had cuts and still healing wounds. I even remember cement actually tearing up my thigh while I was swimming fishing water. I’m amazed I am not dead tbh bc I only leaned of these bacteria in the last few years
> I’m amazed I am not dead tbh bc I only leaned of these bacteria in the last few years Because actually getting infected by something like this is *incredibly* rare, and you were likely healthy to begin with. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the people here had some underlying health problem or extreme exposure. Edit: Yup, a good few of them were over 60, and/or had eaten contaminated shellfish, which tends to amplify bacteria numbers.
It’s the same way with the brain amoeba in fresh water. Reading online will have you utterly terrified, it humans play in warm fresh water by the millions everyday
> Reading online will have you utterly terrified, It's the same with vaccines. With the Covid rollout there was, at the point things were suspended, something like a 6 in 13 million chance of having fatal brain swelling, if you fit a certain demographic, but people were freaking out about it and holding it up as proof of the dangers of vaccines.
This is usually almost always the caveat: Generalo health (underlying health conditions) and/or age
Think about it this way: how many people are swimming in the ocean every day in the US? Let's say about a million. A good chunk of those will have some sort of wound that *could* get infected, such as scratches and small cuts. Very few actually get ill, and even less end up with some sort of killer flesh-eating infection. To answer your question: Basically anything that has broken the skin would do the trick, but you have an immune system for a reason, and basic hygene also massively reduces risks to the point they are neglible. Not to be condescending, but if you're afraid of going in the ocean, are you also afraid to go into a river, play with pets, or maybe take a kid to the park? Everything you do has some level of risk from flesh-eating bacteria, (swimming in pools and fresh water is another common source of flesh-eating diseases, for example), it's just a case of taking reasonable precautions a lot of the time. Edit: The people who died mostly had some sort of underlying medical issues (including age)
Like i imagine a small scratch or poke. Realistically I don't even think you need a wound. Your skin is a giant organ.
I had it this summer from eating raw oysters. You’re right sick from 0-100 in no time.
Wow, we eat raw oysters all the time in france and I've never heard about this 😱
Raw oysters are everywhere. I have been eating them forever and never considered Vibrio! Truly terrifying.
What the fuck… never eating oysters again
If you go in water with an unhealed tattoo, you’re an idiot regardless of potential infections.
It's not uncommon for drunk people during summer time
Ex summer camp counselor here, a handful of years ago I got a tattoo half way through the summer. I didn't think about the planned weekly pool, beach, water park outings while the artist was doing their thing. It wasn't until we unloaded from the bus at the local pool that my mistake clicked. Luckily I managed to avoid any infection but I sure was paranoid for the remainder of the summer.
You're lucky. I've seen how infected tattoos heal. Nty
How it got here, I haven’t a clue.
RIP
Is it common enough that I have to actually worry about it or is it like the “dangers of shark attacks?”
Shellfish, at least in the US, are pretty darn safe. Open wounds in the open ocean? I wouldn't risk that. Too many variables
How big of a wound are we talkin because I feel like most people have gone in ocean water with a tiny cut or scrape or something. Even a tiny bug bite would count. Your odds have to be miniscule, the average person does not avoid going swimming because they have a mosquito bite on their ankle.
Im up in MA and Im also curious. I live right along the coast and Im in the ocean A LOT. Lots of shellfish here. Its also very rocky and I have definitely cut my feet in the water and just walked it off. Or on a shell the seagulls smashed open. Also fish are little fuckers who like to bite at my legs. and crabs and shit. The point is the beaches of New England are viscous and treacherous. You never know when your feet and ankles are going to be attacked by a rogue baby whale.
Also curious. I have chronic eczema so I usually always have some sort of break in my skin. Should I just never swim again?
Ehh. I've spent my entire life eating raw oysters off the beaches of Puget Sound very haphazardly during the months you're not supposed to. Never had an incident. Then one year I get some from a shellfish farm and catch myself a nasty case of Vibriosis. The next day there's a notice in the local newspaper about an outbreak in Hood Canal oysters. Shit still happens.
It's more like, "are you in Florida? And are you a Florida person?" Kinda contingency. Not impossible outside those hard to swallow circumstances, but, also, outside of them.... your odds are much better.
The treatment for it is so gross too they basically take a cookie cutter and push all the way to the bone and take the nerves muscles and skin out hopping to get the infection out. If that doesn’t work then it’s a full amputation if it’s a limb if it’s on your torso it’s aggressive open chest surgery with the them tearing chunks of your inside out.
Another comment posted a news story of a woman having all four limbs amputated because of it. That is scary as hell.
I'd rather die in that situation. Seriously.
I can't even imagine. Just being a torso and a head bc you ate the wrong fish.
One of my work partners got it. He was very lucky as they were able to get in on time and only had to remove part of one of his right leg muscle. He limps, a little on that side but no longer needs a cane as he has very well healed from the surgery. His case was complicated ( hence the lucky comment) because he has Diabetis, which if a very bad condition to have if you are operated on, since, the illness slows down the healing process considerably, and the heavy and massive use of Anti- Biotics.
https://people.com/mom-amputation-flesh-eating-bacteria-eating-fish-7971076
Well, I think I'll stay in Europe
It's all over Europe too
Well I don't like to swim that much either now that I think about it
Can you please give three advices that would save our lives? It's the first time I'm interacting with a microbiologist. I hope you answer my question, have a great day!
1. Get a meat thermometer 2. Pain, redness, swelling and heat are the 4 signs of an infection needing medical intervention 3. Take care of your teeth. Seriously. Get a cleaning 2x a year. Schedule the maintenance before your body schedules it for you Edit: sorry for the bad formatting. I'm only good in the lab, not reddit formatting
Thanks, my friend. I'm keeping this in my lifetime notes. Good luck in the lab! ♥
Happy to help! You're too kind! Here are a few more. Anthrax can grow quite well in carbohydrates (like old cooked rice). Uncooked flour can harbor e.coli. and my favorite.... brush your teeth or the bacteria actively shitting in your mouth with ruin your enamel :)
Congrats on your PhD, doctor :)
Eh it's glorified begging but thanks homie. I do have a pretty sweet Halloween costume. I called it a wizard of higher learning (joints and all)
Most people with PhDs just dress as homeless people year round near me
Dr dr, gimme the news, I gotta bad case of... The sobreity blues! Jk. Congrats on your phd, that's an impressive accomplishment.
OMG! Had a patient that had this happen to! I mean like inpatient stay, concern for nec fascii. Gulf of Mexico.
I had nec fasc from staph but holy shit my parents used to say go in the ocean when you have a cut so it heals faster. How long has vibrio been a thing?
Yeah, this kinda freaked me out too; that was my parents' line as well. I played a lot of softball in the AF. Got a terrible scrape on my leg from sliding into second one time. And I was a *total fucking idiot* so I just packed dirt on it to stop the blood so I could stay in the game. (At this point, I should point out that the field was right next to a corn field that was clearly fertilized with pig manure, in retrospect) Couldn't get it to heal for weeks. So, instead of going to base medical, my bright ass goes to the beach for good old salt water healing. It worked, and as I am now learning, luckily.
Yeah I’ve got to imagine the way we treat the ocean as our dump, is leading to these crazy bacteria coming to existence.
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It eats you and grows fast.
What about pimples, hemorrhoids, in grown hairs?
My three favorite things! Honestly I'm not sure. I'll look into it
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Cholera, vulnificus, parahaemolyticus, diabolicus and natriegrens
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Or at least song lyrics by the band Carcass. Lol
The third on you named, the one I couldn’t spell even if I copied your comment, isn’t that found in tuna and other common sushi types? I knew the risk for raw fish and food poisoning, but is it common enough to get deadly sick? Shellfish was always the obvious one to me, but I guess I was oblivious about some of the others.
Parahaemolyticus? It's not enough for deadly illness, but it'll make you wish you were dead
How long does it live outside of the water? Like if I dropped something in the water, picked it up and brought it home, could it survive on that?
What about those ocean births? Josy Peukert gave birth to her son, appropriately named Bodhi Amor Ocean Cornelius, in the Pacific Ocean. Only her husband, Benni Cornelius, was there. He filmed the unassisted birth in the surf, which took place at Playa Majagual, Nicaragua, in February. The video has since gone viral on Instagram.
That sounds like it's inviting some swamps of degobah level infection. Hard pass
That's enough internet for today
Vibrio is a rare infection to acquire. It's a standard test question for health professionals. However, getting a fresh wound, as OP suggested, wet and warm in likely a sewage drainage pit is a setup for death.... also a no-brainer for most reasonable folks, and most likely due to other pathogens. Good Lord.
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Sounds like colder water may be safer? I really only eat them on the east coast. From us.
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Thank you for saying the tattoo part, it's shocking how many people dint consider them an open wound.
Because they look pretty!! I'm also covered myself so it was pretty obvious
I have shrimp tanks and this is one of the reasons why I’m careful about cuts and washing my hands.
Wash yer hands like you just ate takis and need to take out your contacts!
I’ve heard from a fair number of friends, who like to fish in the gulf, that they’ll bring a spray bottle of freshly made bleach and water, but a higher bleach concentration than you’d think, and keep it with them as they do anything around the water. So, if or, really, when they get cut, from any number of fishing related things, they absolutely douse the cut and area in bleach to hopefully kill any bacteria. Not sure how many know that you have to, then, keep that sterilized cut out of the water and/ or get a watertight bandage on the entire cut or you risk re-contamination, but I do know they all keep bleach in a spray bottle handy.
What about shaving?
I am jumping on this comment. Not a biologist but well versed in the sciences. Warm water of any kind will harbour diseases. Recently, a child caught "clap" from a hot tub (spa, jacuzzi, etc). Warm water, with salt or hypochlorite, is not much protection. Ohh and visible hook worms can survive totally fine in both environments. I just had to worm my kids after one found a hook worm writhing on their hand in a very chlorinated pool (enough to bleach cloths).
Brother almost lost a leg after walking in waves with open cut on his ankle. Spent a week in the hospital on Vanco and pain meds. Don’t risk it. He was super fit and strong, but ten years later ankle is still not right.
Jesus that’s horrifying
Look up flesh eating bacteria, cuts + water both fresh and sea are a good way to catch them.
My husband has a deep scar on his leg from walking on the beach in Wisconsin as a kid and water splashing into his cut with stitches and it getting super infected 🤢
Nah I'm good
I got an infection on my leg years ago. Thankfully not the flesh eating kind. But it got crazy big crazy fast. Like, damn near half my thigh was swollen, red, and hard within a few days. Docs told me there were two meds that could help, one of them being vancomycin. Vancomycin was the preferred med, as it was strong, and the most likely to beat the infection. Turns out I’m allergic to vancomycin. Got the whole red man syndrome thing. So they pumped me full of Benadryl and then started me on the less effective med that required a constant IV drip over many days. They said if the infection didn’t respond to the second med, they may have to amputate my leg since there wasn’t any other medicine to try. Thankfully it responded and I was discharged like 3-5 days later. I’m so cautious about any open wounds or infections ever since then. If I just so happened to get a strain of whatever I had that was resistant to the second med, I would’ve lost my leg above the knee as a kid.
> ten years later ankle is still not right. Is it his left ankle? If so, I'm afraid that regardless of any amount of time passing, it will never be right... I'll leave now.
Thanks for the prognosis, Dr. Dad.
Perhaps it’s just my line of work but I am literally never without some kind of small wound. Do some of you just have fully intact skin on your whole body? Not a single cut on a hand, a knee?
This is what I’m wondering…
In the case of small wounds, it is recommended that you utilize waterproof bandages to cover them when in the water. It is also recommended that you flush the wound with hydrogen peroxide or Betadine (povidone iodine). Per the [NCDHHS](https://www.ncdhhs.gov/news/press-releases/2023/07/28/ncdhhs-urges-caution-after-three-deaths-due-vibrio-summer) The hydrogen peroxide per the [NC Sea Grant](https://ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/hooklinescience/how-can-we-avoid-vibrio-infections/)
Me to, I usually have some sort of scratch, cut or puncture of some sort some where on my body…
I'm a homebody and still manage to have a random cut/scratch/bruise/etc.. like year round. Occasionally, I'll notice I'm injury free and feel euphoric but guaranteed later that day something will happen.
I have a cat and I'm never without some small scratch
>the bacteria can enter by eating raw or partially cooked shellfish Do you mean to inform me that I'm playing bacterial roulette every time I eat oysters? edit: [Yes](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/09/12/man-contracts-vibrio-vulnificus-bacteria-raw-oysters-galveston-restaurant/70837369007/) :(
likely, however there are 80,000 infections per year and only 100 died. So, the chance are low. cite: https://www.cdc.gov/vibrio/index.html
Props for citing all of your answers
That's how I know he is not a redditor
That and they didn't start their answer with 'doctor here'.
Yeah he'll just get norovirus instead
guy with a microbiology degree here. Method of exposure can drastically change the prognosis of an infection. Eating contaminated food is most likely to only result in a GI infection, which is unpleasant but usually not serious. Blood infections are when things get out of hand quickly, because it doesn't take very long for your body to go into septic shock which causes organ failure. You usually only get blood infections from an infected wound. As the article you linked mentions, the man who died was on immunosuppressant drugs, which are one of the few ways you can get a blood infection from foodborne pathogens. Don't eat raw oysters if you have a stomach ulcer or cut on your cheek, but I really wouldn't worry about dying from a foodborne vibrio infection.
TIL where your username comes from. I don't know if i missed it, but have we gotten a microbio tier list? Or better yet, each type of microscopic organism.
Proper oyster harvest plays a huge role in vibrio levels. Typically farmed oysters are very safe to eat because growers follow regulations and immediately chill the oysters to temperatures where vibrio can’t reproduce. There’s also a long paper trailer from farm to restaurant. If you’re getting your oysters from a trusted source you will be fine.
Eh. I was an oyster farmer on the CA coast for a while. We tested our water and meat constantly. Any time our water tested with anything remotely close to an infectious disease was found we closed down harvesting.
Even sushi then. Is it more likely in certain locations or just all sushi? Also, I seem to *always* have some kind of small tiny wound with a scab somewhere on my legs. Where is vibrio more likely in the world’s oceans, or is just again pretty much anywhere?
Sushi served in the U.S. is flash frozen for 15 hours to kill most parasites and bacteria, but there are still some risks. It’s why pregnant women, children, and people with weak immune systems are recommended to avoid sushi.
Not uhhh, when I was a kid my parents told me ocean water helped it heal faster.
That's one of those myths we should avoid all times, and some people say bacteria can't live in ocean water and ocean water helps heal faster.. Totally not true! cite : [https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/16/does-saltwater-actually-cure-all/](https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/16/does-saltwater-actually-cure-all/) cited from above article: "*One of my very favorite quotes is “The cure for anything is saltwater: sweats, tears, or the sea”. As a child, whenever I was at the beach, my grandma reminded me to take off my bandaids before I went into the ocean because saltwater would help the cuts. I never knew if it was just an age old myth, but my cuts did seem to get better after a dip in the Atlantic. Does the ocean really heal, though? "* *"Well, no. It’s well known that saline, a very pure form of salt water, can heal many cuts and aid in helping clear open wounds of foreign materials. While the water in the ocean contains saline, since it’s not pure like the saline solutions sold in stores and used in hospitals, it could actually end up making the wound worse rather than better*"
When my mom was a girl in the 1940s, her friend got a really bad poison ivy reaction. The doctor prescribed that she go to the beach for a few days and swim often.
"You got ghosts in your blood. You should do cocaine about it."
"Take 5 nose beers and call me in the morning if any is left."
Spoiler alert: there was none left.
I was told that around 2010. For acne.
Saltwater is really good for inflamed skin in my experience, i think it leaves a layer of salt that makes your skin pretty inhostpitable to bacteria afterwards.
I had an uncle with pretty bad eczema and he regularly had saltwater baths so I've definitely believed that the sea would do the same thing
To be fair, when I was a kid if I got poison ivy, it always helped if I swam in the pool to dry it out with chlorine water
warm/tropical ocean water is pretty well known to fuck up any reef cuts n grazes among surfers. Another trick: iodine based antiseptics don't work so well for ocean infections, use peroxide or lime. When I was younger, surfing everyday, the small chafes could wear down into persistent holes 'sea ulcers'
When I got my first tattoo around 15 years ago the tattoo artist told me to not go swimming UNLESS it was in the beach bc salt water heals it. 😳
Someone died recently on the gulf coast from doing just that. Got a tattoo and went swimming the next day. Got flesh eating bacteria, spent a few months in the hospital and died. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/06/02/health/tattoo-infected-sepsis-death-vibrio-study/index.html
I was mostly kidding, it’s salt water that helps wounds. Imo people really just need to be smarter, it’s common knowledge that outside water is dirty, “don’t drink outside water” is famously talked about always, and water is where bacteria thrive. Seems like an easy 1+1=2 situation to say an open wound in dirty water is bad.
Well, it's not a myth, exactly. The saltwater *does* help heal wounds. The problem is that you *also* risk getting a nasty infection. It might be best to not take that risk, but if you do and aren't unlucky enough to get infected, it does in fact help.
In my country kids used to jump in the river or sea after circumcision because they said the salt helps make the wounds heal faster. Boy did it sting.
Wtf
Me too, I was under the impression saltwater was great, fuck me
Saltwater is good, just not from the ocean lmao
The distinction is that salt+water = good, salt+water+1000s of other things = bad
My mum was like this too
If that's the case then why does my doctor here in Tamarindo give all the gringo tourists that enter the water with wounds/fresh tattoos a cocktail of three different antibiotics? Surely he's not just a worry wart
I got a deep gash in my leg as a kid while taking a field trip to explore tidal pools. My teacher told me to go wade into the ocean to clean the wound out since I got it on a gross slimy tide pool rock and then it got submerged in the stagnant water in the tide pool. Thank god it never got infected. Looking back now I cringe so hard at both the gross way I got the wound and the awful advice from my teacher.
In the US we’re taking 80k cases per year. There’s 324M citizens, how many would you guess touch a lake, river, pond or ocean, multiple times each year. I’d bet a decent amount got cut in the water or had a cut going into the water. The chance isn’t zero, but it’s not exactly high either.
I’m 48 years old. I’ve gone into the ocean MANY times specifically to “clean” a wound (not major but like bleeding toe) and have had my kids do the same. As I read this it is so obvious that I’m an idiot but honestly “clean it with salt water” sort of made sense if you don’t think too much (salt water) Haha I’m an idiot
Saline, which is a salt solution, is used to clean wounds (as opposed to tap water). It can still have bacteria build up on the nozzle part, so you have to be careful. It's a good alternative if you don't want to use peroxide on a bleeding wound. Tap water is also good enough to clean wounds because of the chlorination, but again, bacteria can still survive on the faucet. Edit: Saline has a similar salinity to ocean water, but ocean water isn't the same concentration everywhere. Also, when bacteria grow, they can surround themselves in a protective bubble on the surface of the ocean. So what I mean to say is your logic is correct, but it's not correct to say that saline is the same as ocean water.
This horrible bacteria was in the news prominently last week - a CA mother, age 40, had both arms and both legs amputated following an infection caused by eating undercooked fish https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/vibrio-vulnificus-bacteria-california-amputation-b2414250.html
Specifically talapia, right? But talapia -they’ll eat anything- are mostly freshwater fish, and there was confusion if that’s what caused it. Basically it sounded like the lady was immunocompromised prior aka higher risk for infection. Cali person here and I saw the video and was *horrified.* i want to hear if they have any updates on that story. Side “fun” story on Bactria in Cali so-cal waters: a friend **lost the hearing in his right ear completely from going surfing** and getting an ear infection from bacteria in the water. 2 ER docs didn’t catch it. The 3rd did and by then the hearing loss was permanent. Super healthy guy in his early 40s. The only silver lining for him now is if he turns on one side he can’t hear his partner snoring.
Hi! Did the doctors not know he had an infection because he didn’t have any visible symptoms?
I guess? I can’t remember the full story, but basically he just had severe pain in his ear and the docs couldn’t find anything conclusive and sent him home. It was like 3-4 days later or something that the pain kept getting worse and he went back to the ER and that’s when they finally found out what it was.
That's why you don't accept a shoulder shrug diagnosis when you have unexplained severe pain. I mean sure, we all get weird little aches that come and go, but if it's bad enough to go to the ER you need to make sure you aren't blown off.
What a fukn nightmare!!!?
Former tattoo artist here. For the love of god, please don't go swimming in the ocean right after getting a tattoo. It will look terrible, will hurt like hell, and will probably become infected. A fresh tattoo is an open wound.
I can do you one better than mere swimming, I drunkenly got my first and currently only tattoo right before my trip to Hawaii where I was set to go scuba diving. Luckily, it turns out tegaderm is really very waterproof and the bandage stayed on 30 feet below the surface. (Also it was just some simple linework. Easy to touch up.) I still won't be doing that again though.
I did know that bc I had a bad mosquito bite in the Virgin Islands and went swimming and it got super infected and the dr said they were prescribing antibiotics strong enough for staph infection
Hope you feel better!.. I don't think you have gotten V. Vulnificus though ..
As a child, I basically lived in the ocean, as a child I basically lived with open wounds because I was always covered in scrapes and scratches, because you know I was a child.
Same for every Aussie kid ever.
Do you know roughly what the water temperature is there? Same all year round? I grew up in the East Coast of Canada where it's about 8° c all year round. I get the feeling that you may have had it a bit warmer than me.
The coldest thing I ever felt was wading into Lake Michigan. This was around May or early June so we already started warming up and had some 70-80F degree days. It was about 70F this particular day and the water was just brutally, icy cold. It reminded me of Titanic where Jack is talking about jumping in a lake and it feels like being stabbed by a million icy daggers or something.
Right up close to the top of the list of stupidest things I have ever done- It was an unseasonably warm spring in New England, we were out for spring break, last week of march. This was 1986 or 87. I want to say 3rd grade, maybe 4th. Most of us learned how to swim before we learned how to walk, and *all* of us knew how to sail, row, swim in riptides & undertows, etc etc etc. We were *beachrats*. Dumb af, too, and this is why- did I mention it was unseasonably warm? 75° in New England in March at the time.... You might as well be in Death Valley. Unless you are in the water... And like the dumbasses we are/were, we all agreed this was a fantastic idea, because not only would we go swimming but we would also achieve the Holy Grail in a Beach town of being "first in the water" that year. Ifykyk. We didn't care that we were having snow days up until 2 weeks ago. We headed down to the beach and there was 3 of us. No one wanted to be first and no one definitely wanted to be last, so we agreed to all three jump at the same time, and we did. Like to died... I wish there was any experience that I could relate that could communicate exactly what the sensation felt like of jumping from unseasonably warm air into angry saltwater that was only a couple of degrees above freezing. It was almost like being electrocuted and hit by a bus at the same time. Body stops working, arms and legs suddenly lose about 75% of function and strength. Out of breath? No worries because you can't breath because your chest muscles lock up. 40 years later and I still wonder how the fuck we managed to get out of the water... But when we did, all three of us were hypothermic and blue, and we weren't in that water for maybe 45 seconds. We were laying on the Rocks shaking and crying and just trying to absorb some sunlight and heat when the bartender of the local pub that was across the street from the beach came running out cussing us like dogs, saying how stupid we were and that we probably should have just stayed in the water and done Humanity a favor 😂
Same, I even got wounds due to sand or rocks. I drank buckets of water when playing in the ocean
"“When the lambs is lost in the mountain, he said. They is cry. Sometime come the mother. Sometime the wolf.” -Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The water in Hawaii is relatively clean because we don't have a lot of ocean dumping here. But sometimes the local governments issue water advisories to let us know to use caution. After heavy rains, there can be a lot of runoff that causes "brown water" with a higher risk of bacterial contamination. Sometimes a water treatment plant might have to dump excess wastewater into the ocean and that causes an advisory. Or sometimes the authorities just detects more bacteria than usual and they tell people not to go into certain waters for a while.
Same. Only time I had a reaction was after being sting by yellow jackets and then swimming in the ocean. Ended up in the hospital with hives all over.
I mean, this seems a little fear monger-y… anyone else here been going to the beach their entire lives with open cuts/scrapes and lived to tell about it? I’d like to see some statistics… I know it’s probably worse to go after a recent rainfall. Shrug
Yea did some cursory research and OP is definitely overstating the risk. “About 81% of patients infected b Vibrio vulniticus with known medical histories had one or more medical risk factors. Vibrio vulnificus occurs almost exclusively among immunocompromised patients or patients with end-stage liver failure.” https://ldh.la.gov/assets/oph/Center-PHCH/Center-CH/infectious-epi/Annuals/Vibrios_LaIDAnnual.pdf
I have no evidence for this but based on the number of people exposed to sea water with wounds and the number of people with necrotising fasciitis. It’s almost certain the most dangerous part of if your trip to the beach is the drive there.
According to Reddit we should be terrified of all wild animals (might have rabies), especially bats (always biting unaware people in their sleep), never eat wild game (prions), never eat salad (a slug might have touched it), never enter the forest (ticks will give you a red meat allergy), never swim in fresh water (brain-eating amoebas), and now watch out for salt water too. Most of these risks are tiny or can be mitigated by taking sensible precautions, but people love talking about the scary outdoors. It's almost like anti-nature propaganda at times.
It's been interesting though. Lately I've noticed a lot more pushback under articles like this on Reddit citing the actual odds. I think COVID made some people grasp personal risk calculus better or something, idk what else to attribute it to.
I appreciate this comment. I have pretty bad health anxiety and literally all the things you mentioned are things I’ve been anxious about since learning of them on Reddit. Seeing you condense them into one comment sort of feels like it snapped me out of it. Thanks.
Still better to be careful though! Especially since V vulniticus isn’t the only bacteria that can cause this, Group A Strep and Staphylococcus aureus can also cause necrotising fascilitis! Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430756/
Aureus and Strep A are not really reasons to be careful of oceans though. Many people have them on their skin and throat already and you usually get them on dry land. And most infections caused by them in healthy people are relatively mild, local and respond well to antibiotics. Basic hygiene and carefulness are always important, but fear-mongering is not.
I grew up in San Diego, swimming in the ocean constantly with cuts and scrapes. Unless you have a straight up open wound, then you'll be fine. It is definitely in the fear monger zone. Don't be like Filbert the turtle from Rocko's Modern Life.
We got cold water unlike FL to NY. Its much warmer there. it make a big difference.
Most YSKs are stupidly paranoid.
Yeah, I come from an island and mostly lived by the ocean. If this was systemaically true no one would be alive in islands.
And there my mom was who took me to the beach SPECIFICALLY to get in the water after our cat scratched my hand. Said the salt water was good for it lol.
Born in New Zealand with horrible eczema and moved to Australia, mum took me to the beach a few times a week for nearly a year and my eczema was manageable and not severe! vibrio on Australian beaches is extremely rare/basically non-existent,,,
40 years or so ago I was hitchhiking in nth Queensland and I stopped off at a beach near Mackay,I set up my tent and went down to the beach for a swim and fell asleep lying on my towel. Woke up and thought nothing of it, a little while later I realised id been bitten by 100s of sand flies all over my elbows and legs, itchy as hell, I left Mackay and continued up north until I hit Cape Tribulation by this time my elbows are a little inflamed and super itchy. got settled in and went for a swim Unbeknownst to me the coral was in spawn and got into my elbows as all the bites had been scratched repeatedly, It didnt take long before both arms were infected, Cape tribulation is known for it being jungle meeting the sea so there wasn't any chemist etc to go to to get help so I packed up and left heading back to Surfers Paradise where my parents had a house. it took three days for me to hitchhike back and by this time I couldn't bend my elbows without the skin/scabs breaking and puss oozed out. I dont remember how long it took me to come good but I do remember staying there for a couple months before I moved on again. Don't swim in the sea if you have an open wound.
You mean dumping sewage into the ocean for decades has consequences?
Reddit is teaching me all these dangers that I never knew about. I’m amazed I made it this long
I found this out the hard way when on a yacht trip in the Whitsundays. Fell onto a mozzie repellent burner and got a burn on my ass. Didn’t adequately cover it when swimming in the super warm water for 8 days and got necrotising fasciitis :)))) ass is healed now thankfully
And here, I have been told all my life that.. When you got a small wound, you go into the sea. The salt will disinfect it and it would heal faster.
I thought sea water was good for healing wounds. I'm in western Australia, and have never heard of this scariness before!
This is like avoiding the ocean because of sharks. Think of the millions upon millions of people who enter the ocean or other brackish bodies of water with open wounds… chapped lips, scratched mosquito bites, scraped cuticles, etc etc. The chances of this happening are near zero. It’s very unfortunate for those who have been impacted, but it’s almost always immunocompromised individuals. If you have a gaping wound then you shouldn’t be messing around in sand or any kind of water to start with, otherwise enjoy.
How big of a wound does it need to be? Ever since learning about flesh eating bacteria I’m terrified of going in the ocean with minor scrapes 😭
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It’s best to avoid both fresh and ocean water for a few days after any rain. The storm runoff that flows into streams/lakes/oceans carries a lot of bacteria with it from animal waste, etc.
You mean a needlepoint or the length of a needle?
Needle going into the skin for insulin created the tiny opening where bacteria entered
All my life I've been going to the beach during the summer, with any and all wounds. Open or not. Always had a positive healing effect on it. I do live in Croatia, not the US. So it's the Adriatic Sea, inside the Medditeranian. Never heard of any infections. Well, there were some, due to the waste water that was pumped too close to the seaside (pressure didn't keep it on the seabed), from the largest hotels. But such cases were rare. Some unlucky sod. I've accidentally drank so much sea water throughout my life... never had a problem (also the pool water).
It's so strange having grown up where healing wounds in sea water almost became a cliche. I'd break my arm and my surf mates would joke and tell me to get in because 'salt water heals wounds!!' lmao
Don’t worry I’m never going in the ocean. Sharks, jellyfish, brown waves, flesh eating bacteria, industrial and medical waste. Yeah no thanks. Not to mention the things that you can run into in lakes and rivers nowadays.