Has anyone gotten a ringworm fungal infection from windsurfing in saltwater bodies, bay or ocean? I had an infection, treated and it went away, also bleached all my clothes and sheets. Then a month later I got a similar infection, but not exactly the same, treating again and it is going away quickly after two days, but now wondering where I am getting it from. Have not been near dogs, which carry ringworm. Now I did start swimming at my local health club right before I got this infection, but was not swimming at the pool when I got the previous infection. Club employee said the pool has been carefully maintained and may actually be good to eliminate a ringworm infection because of the chlorine in the water.

Where is the infection on your body? I had a ringworm type infection years ago that spread over most of my body. Cleared it off with anti fungus cream, but it started growing again on the inside of my elbows a couple of times. A bit of thought told me that the only bit of my body not getting the cream was my scalp and maybe I sleep with my arms up over my head. So I rubbed the cream through my hair as well as my body and it cleared up and never returned.
Funny thing is it did start from the ocean. I got a bad bluebottle sting that left a bleached patch on my belly. That patch was the area that the fungus grew from, but not until 3 or 4 years later. Or maybe my nasty sister let a mangy dog sleep in my bed and it was just coincidence that the infection was in the same spot.

Photos? We just use coconut oil, works well.

Manuel7 said..
Photos? We just use coconut oil, works well.

Sorry, it has cleared up, was only small 1 cm diameter spots. Coconut oil, interesting, could apply to chest before going in the water. Thanks

Sandman1221 said..
Boudreaux's Butt Paste

Great brand name! I'd love to see their advertising campaign

Sandman1221 said..
Thinking that after each session need to scrub my upper body with an anti-dandruff shampoo since that contains anti-fungal chemical.

A dermatologist advised that when I had the problem. The selenium is supposed to do the trick.
It didn't, but it did make me smell faintly like rotten egg gas (H2S). A couple of tubes of the tinea cream that you can buy at the supermarket worked

Mr Milk said..

Sandman1221 said..
Thinking that after each session need to scrub my upper body with an anti-dandruff shampoo since that contains anti-fungal chemical.

A dermatologist advised that when I had the problem. The selenium is supposed to do the trick.
It didn't, but it did make me smell faintly like rotten egg gas (H2S). A couple of tubes of the tinea cream that you can buy at the supermarket worked

Oh I did that many times the OTC fungus cream, now looking for a cream to put on before getting in salt water to stall/kill the fungus that does stick to my skin while in the water, will then scrub chest with a dandruff shampoo afterwards to get all off before it has a chance to grow on my skin. Just getting tired of it growing on my skin.

elmo said..

Mr Milk said..

Sandman1221 said..
Thinking that after each session need to scrub my upper body with an anti-dandruff shampoo since that contains anti-fungal chemical.

A dermatologist advised that when I had the problem. The selenium is supposed to do the trick.
It didn't, but it did make me smell faintly like rotten egg gas (H2S). A couple of tubes of the tinea cream that you can buy at the supermarket worked

Better than Tinea cream is thrush antifungals which you can get over the counter at chemists which work after a couple of days vs couple of weeks for for the tinea cream.

Will check if it is available in the US, have also tried bleach 1:1 water and that works in about 3 days, with the tinea cream after 3 days most is gone but assume I need to keep using it, will talk to a pharmacist about that since the infection is just in the dead skin cell layer on the living skin maybe once the skin looks normal the infection is gone. But then I need to wash clothes and sheets with bleach.

Probably comes from your wetsuit.
i get an infection from time to time...definitely need treatment with anti fungal as it'll spread.
sudocreme, really doesn't have much impact on it.

I am in Florida, so no wetsuit since maybe February, now clean shirts (wear two, white UPF 50 over venting black, for sun protection) in color safe bleach after each outing.

Pewit said..
I've had rashes from wearing boots and Cellulitis which required a stay in hospital for a course of antibiotics after helping run a rescue boat for the Mirror World Championships while wearing wetsuit boots for 3 days in the middle of a Sydney summer.My solution is to put some antibacterial liquid soap in the boots and then fill them with hot water and then poor it out after 10 mins without rinsing and dry them out. If they're still a bit smelly which is an indication of bacteria, try squirting a little soap in them before you put them on. If you've left them in a bag and they've gone feral, drop half a sanitiser tablet (e.g. Napisan) in each boot with some hot water and leave them to soak for 1/2 hour. Then let them dry completely.

I always wear booties, but after each use I dry them out using a fan driven boot dryer for about an hour (gentle heat), that has kept my feet infection free. But did have a problem with my big toe getting infected when I did not dry boots out completely, so soaked boot toe area with cotton soaked in 70% isopropanol for 30 min. and then dried as above, solved the problem.

But I think a better treatment to kill bacteria and fungus in boots and on other items is to spray with a lysol type of disinfectant spray that is 50% alcohol.

Heard about using anti dandruff shampoo as cheap preventative with bjj rolling. Never got ringworm from salt water but a couple of us used to get skin breakouts from sailing especially after rain.

Might be worth you seeing a dermatologist, yeah salt water carries crap loads of pathogens but maybe it's just altering your skin pH or dryness favourably for existing skin flora? If that's the case any extra soaking/treatment of swimwear could be making problem worse.

Daktagold works well. Over the counter , Chemist shop.

What I read online was to make a 1:1 solution of household bleach and water, and use a cotton ball or Q-tip to apply to and around the ringworm infection. The big advantage is they claimed doing that 2-3 times a day would eliminate the infection in 3 days. So I tried it, and it worked in three days!

melih said..

Sandman1221 said..
What I read online was to make a 1:1 solution of household bleach and water, and use a cotton ball or Q-tip to apply to and around the ringworm infection. The big advantage is they claimed doing that 2-3 times a day would eliminate the infection in 3 days. So I tried it, and it worked in three days!

Dear Sandman 1221,

Last year same thing happened to me. Because of dirty salt water and dirty beaches. My dermatologist wrote me a prescription which cream name is TRAVAZOL. It contains cortizon I used it twice a day for 15 days. I healed. This cream is really solution.
Bye Melih.

Okay, thanks Melih, good to know that salt water is where I likely got it, will look up travazol.

And by the time you realize you have a ringworm infection, one to two weeks or so, your clothes will be contaminated with fungal spores that survive normal washing and will reinfect you. Found detergent plus Borax in hot water killed off the spores.