A couple of days ago I ran across an article about MAC (mycobacterium avium complex, a kind of alternate, non-contagious TB) which claimed that sometimes shower heads are a transmission device.
Although I now know that MAC is not my issue (well, at least the numerous tests I've had for it say it's not my issue) these days, given my years of coughing I'm pretty interested in this sort of information.
Although I now know that MAC is not my issue (well, at least the numerous tests I've had for it say it's not my issue) these days, given my years of coughing I'm pretty interested in this sort of information.
So last night I took our shower head off, placed it in a sink, and submerged it in bleach.
We have a low-flow shower head which I bought when Robin was still in Middle School and we kept running out of hot water because of her showering habits. The shower enclosure has been rebuilt several times since then, but it has never occurred to me to clean the head, even though we've obviously had it off its pipe.
Anyway, this morning when I woke up the sink liquid was so black I could scarcely make out the shower head: I thought maybe some part had disintegrated. But no, after I had flushed it with water and reinstalled it, it worked normally.
We have a low-flow shower head which I bought when Robin was still in Middle School and we kept running out of hot water because of her showering habits. The shower enclosure has been rebuilt several times since then, but it has never occurred to me to clean the head, even though we've obviously had it off its pipe.
Anyway, this morning when I woke up the sink liquid was so black I could scarcely make out the shower head: I thought maybe some part had disintegrated. But no, after I had flushed it with water and reinstalled it, it worked normally.
I did some research:
1. This is an interview with Dr. Norman Pace (Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado in Boulder) whose report is largely responsible for the flurry of alarmist news reports about the potential evils lurking in your shower head: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112963574
2. This is the Wikipedia entry on MAC, which gives one more information than most people could reasonably want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycobacterium_avium-intracellulare_infection
3. And this is a story from Popular Mechanics, in which Vincent LaBombardi, the director of microbiology at New York's Mount Sinai Medical Center, is quoted, saying, "You've all been `infected,' so to speak," with the organism... “A normal individual inhales mac all the time... Mac is just not that big a deal. I'm not going to lose any sleep over shower heads contaminated with mac." http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to/a4533/4331669/
Regardless about how you feel about the issue, you may want to try duplicating my experience to flush all the nasties out of your shower head from time-to-time.
Black bleach is not something we need to experience!
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