Ever got sick or had recreational water illnesses (RWI)

[TheAsianBoi]

So kind of a dumb, yet curious question... Has anyone ever gotten sick or had RWI after jumping in mud? For the first time ever.. I actually found a mud spot right next to my house but for some reason I'm really paranoid that I'm gonna get sick because the water that was in the mud was swamp water DX I WAS wearing a bathing suit and did not fully submerge my face in the mud, nor ingest any of the mud/water! BUT I did discover a cut on my leg, so that freaked me out a bit! I also jumped in a pond to kind of wash off the mud before I went home and took a shower! xP

[joedeep130535]

Never had any side effects from mud or washing off. The occasional cut from foreign bodies hidden in the mud which has healed without problems The situations to avoid are where industrial pollution or sewage may have contaminated the nice ,clean ,mud

[Duncan Edwards]

You're a human being. Most of us are equipped with a reasonably robust immune system. Unless you can see raw sewage or toxic waste pouring into your spot I wouldn't be too concerned. Been to quite a few muddy places and remained nasty for hours at a time on occasion while covered with cuts and bug bites without any ill effects. Kristine used to swallow a bucket of gunk on every shoot and wash her mouth out with Mississippi river water. No problems. Obviously anything could happen but I think with reasonable attention to your surroundings you really don't have anything to worry about.

[YerK]

While in the navy, my ship went to Ketchikan Alaska. I hiked out to a creek that carried glacier runoff into the ocean. The mud there was sandy and I sank to the waist in it, but the temp was somewhere a degree or two above freezing. It was too cold, even for me, so I got out and did my wet hike back after just the one sink. Even at that, I had gotten too cold, and had a fever and the runs for 3 days.

Another time, also in the navy, I went for a hike at Camp Pendleton (I think). I hiked along the beach, between the oceans and sandy cliffs. A stream crossed the beach, fairly close to the car, and not wanting a wet hike I took off shoes & socks and pulled sweat pants up over my knees to wade through some very cold water. (quite a bit warmer than the glacier runoff, though) Once across, I put shoes and socks back on and took a hike. No real mud to speak of. Turned around and came back, crossing the stream barefoot again. When I got to the car, a cool wind was blowing from the other side of the car, and I noticed one ankle was a lot cooler than the other. Once I got the car open, I found that the cold ankle was bleeding. Seems I'd cut it badly, I'm guessing during that last stream crossing. The ship's corpsman wasn't on board that night, and the base med clinic was only open during the day, so it wound up my job to clean the sand out of the cut and to close the wound with bandaids before going to bed. It was a lot more adventure than I cared for.

Oh, and there was this one time I waited until well after dark to go mudlarking and skinny-dipping in the Red River, down near Fulton, AR. All of that went just fine, despite being extremely dangerous, until I was getting ready to go back to the car, and discovered (by putting them on) that I'd set my shorts down on top of an ant hill. Now *that* was painful, but at least nobody was there to see...

[Pixie Cut Lover]

Never have gotten sick, cut up with some salt crystals under the mud at Owens Lake in Ca and occasionally I've gotten into some mud that was too alkaline and it burned some, that's about it.

[Jumpoff_Joe]

Not an illness, but I cut the underside of my big toe 15 years ago during my first encounter with deep quicksand. It never healed completely, and to this day I have a thick scar from a deep gash. I should have had stitches put in (it was the underside of my toe knuckle). I wore foot protection mostly thereafter.

I had a model get some pond mud in her mouth just yesterday, she was splashing around quite a bit. She's concerned that she will get sick. No word yet. Next time, for her, I told her I will give her some gin she can use for mouthwash.

[Jon Smith]

I have never heard of that illness.
I've been sick before, but it was never from getting in the mud.

[Sedge]

30 years ago during a trip to Oklahoma I'd wandered off to find some mud. We were staying at one of the huge lakes. After walking through a wooded area I found a patch of creamy yellowish mud along the shore to walk barefoot in, but the mud wasn't more than about five inches deep. Overall a disappointment.

In the mud I stepped on a broken dried-out branch, basically a 1/4" thick sharp end that poked straight through the sole of my foot. Very painful and it got infected. I had washed it out in the shower afterward and applied antibiotics and bandages, and eventually the swelling and pain subsided. I didn't tell anyone what I'd done, but I couldn't walk without a limp for a couple of days.

For some reason I was afraid for a long time that I'd picked up hookworm or something from walking around barefoot in Oklahoma. That didn't really pan out.

In recent years, I scraped myself up pretty good once getting lost returning from a night sink. My legs and arms were cut up and bruised from pushing and stumbling a few hundred yards through thorns and branches in thick, swampy brush. I couldn't wear shorts for more than a week. My girlfriend saw my legs one night and was horrified and demanded to know what had happened to me.

Often for a day following a good wallow and submergence my eyes produce excess mucus as it flushes out all the crap I absorbed, sometimes with visible specks in it.

On the plus side, my skin feels awesome for at least a week after.

[SarahMichelle]

So kind of a dumb, yet curious question... Has anyone ever gotten sick or had RWI after jumping in mud? For the first time ever.. I actually found a mud spot right next to my house but for some reason I'm really paranoid that I'm gonna get sick because the water that was in the mud was swamp water DX I WAS wearing a bathing suit and did not fully submerge my face in the mud, nor ingest any of the mud/water! BUT I did discover a cut on my leg, so that freaked me out a bit! I also jumped in a pond to kind of wash off the mud before I went home and took a shower! xP

I've only been sinking for about 5 years now but I've never caught anything. I actually never even thought about it until recently when I saw on the news that there woman was running a mud run race & she got a bacterial infection & went blind. That freaks me out!!!!!

[Duncan Edwards]

So kind of a dumb, yet curious question... Has anyone ever gotten sick or had RWI after jumping in mud? For the first time ever.. I actually found a mud spot right next to my house but for some reason I'm really paranoid that I'm gonna get sick because the water that was in the mud was swamp water DX I WAS wearing a bathing suit and did not fully submerge my face in the mud, nor ingest any of the mud/water! BUT I did discover a cut on my leg, so that freaked me out a bit! I also jumped in a pond to kind of wash off the mud before I went home and took a shower! xP

I've only been sinking for about 5 years now but I've never caught anything. I actually never even thought about it until recently when I saw on the news that there woman was running a mud run race & she got a bacterial infection & went blind. That freaks me out!!!!!

Freak not.

A lot of these wild one in a million kind of things usually happen to people with some kind of compromised immune system. If there was anything to fear from "regular" mud use we would have buried somebody a long time ago. And you are way to pleasant a ray of sunshine for some annoying bug to infect anyway.