Can People Undergoing Chemotherapy Float? – DSP 159

Naturally, most float centers want to be available for anyone who needs it, but there are practical limitations that they may not know about with certain conditions. Is there any risk or issue to having someone with cancer float in a float center? Do they need special instruction or care? Are float centers opening themselves up to liability by providing them floats?

Ashkahn and Graham answer a few of these questions, but the most important thing to remember is to consult the patient’s doctor. Leave the medical advice to the professionals.

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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: And today’s question is “what do I need to know about floaters undergoing cancer treatments? And how might they affect my water for other customers?”

Ashkahn: Okay.

Graham: I’ll just leave this one to you, I think.

Ashkahn: I got this.

Graham: Ashkahn is the one here that actually has a medical degree, so.

Ashkahn: So I mean, I guess I don’t know.

Graham: We’re not doctors.

Ashkahn: This is a big I don’t know, here.

Graham: We’re not doctors. We never graduated medical school.

Ashkahn: So let’s talk about, I feel like the second part of the question.

Graham: How to reach out to people who are doctors?

Ashkahn: Yeah. 911 I think is what you call, and then-

Graham: So first of all, if you’re getting this question from someone who has cancer, and is being treated for it, there are a lot of different ways the cancer can be treated, and your first course of action should definitely be to have them ask their physician, or the people who are treating them.

Ashkahn: Yeah, you’re also not a doctor.

Graham: I mean, probably. Right? Some of you may be.

Ashkahn: That’s true.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: I feel like, so I feel like the second part of the question was alluding to maybe some sort of concept of chemotherapy, like whatever is going on in somone’s body leaching out into the float tank or potentially being harmful for?

Graham: Yeah, causing issues somehow with what you’re leaving behind in the water.

Ashkahn: Yeah, and I would, but … I don’t know. I would be a little surprised if something like that was going on. We don’t tend to leach things out like that, I think because this idea of detoxifying, or having toxins coming out of your body, even regardless of chemotherapy or anything like that, I think is not the most credible thing I’ve heard in my life.

Graham: Yeah, for sure. You can do some quick Google searches on the idea of kind of detoxing things out of your body in general, and find some fun reading there for sure.

Ashkahn: Yeah. I would probably, just my hunch again not really having any idea about any of this, my hunch is that there’s probably not really a huge concern there. I don’t imagine that someone is leaving something in the float tank that would affect anybody else.

Graham: Yeah, and their doctors would know as well. And I would assume that a lot of the stuff that is going into, like because you do find things like medications and stuff like that in pools and hot tubs, but it’s a lot of people urinating it out. It’s not usually like-

Ashkahn: Right, or sweat.

Graham: Yeah, or sweat. Yeah, I was going to say or sweat.

Ashkahn: But again, you never really sweat much in float tanks as you would in the pool or a hot tub.

Graham: That’s also what I was going to say. Yeah, so there’s … but yeah, there’s kind of less concern of both of those happening, and I mean, just like anyone who is just taking pain killers could do the same thing, you know, if they’re peeing it all in your float tank or something, then they’re leaving behind some trace amounts of opioids and things like that in the water too. Whether or not that’s actually harmful to people, or it just gets completely inactivated over the filtration process, is a question.

Ashkahn: But no one asked that question, so we don’t have to- [crosstalk 00:03:32]

Graham: Nobody asked, so we don’t have to answer it.

Ashkahn: Don’t have to answer that.

Graham: But related to cancer specifically, and so I did, I just went out and did a quick Google search, was kind of what I did to assess what’s going on, and according to the American Cancer Society at least, concerns about going into swimming pools, hot tubs, I didn’t see anything about concern for other swimmers, or other people in those hot tubs, you know. And in the case of hot tubs, it was that someone might get dizzier than usual because they’re going through chemotherapy, and should be in a hot tub around someone else so they don’t just kind of pass out or drown, or something like that, and that was one of the biggest concerns out there.

In the case of being in a swimming pool, it’s kind of like don’t over exert yourself. Make sure that you’re confident in the cleanliness of the swimming pool you’re going in. So as a float center owner, paying specific attention to how you’re treating the water, and making sure that everything is up to snuff is really necessary to have anyone in there who has sensitive disorders. Like you can imagine someone getting really sick, or catching a stomach bug when they’re going through chemo just sounds like the worst, you know?

Ashkahn: Yeah, and hopefully that’s just true. You should just always be doing a good job with your sanitation, hopefully, but-

Graham: Yeah, I guess that’s-

Ashkahn: That’s probably one that, if anything were to happen, that would probably be the most likely, is someone is just going to get sick, and it’s especially sucky because they have something else going on, or they have a system that is not as strong to kind of deal with it.

Graham: Yeah. But that was it. The American Cancer Society didn’t seem to have any concerns. I’d be less concerned about anything being left behind than someone potentially getting light-headed, or having any nausea in the float tank.

Ashkahn: Yeah, definitely nausea can come with chemotherapy, and sometimes people get nauseous in float tanks. Hopefully those probably wouldn’t I would imagine be super related, but you know. It’s in an area that if you have motion sickness, or things we talked about on other episodes, that is something that could lead to a heightened state of nausea.

Graham: And we’ve had many people with cancer come through Float On, and have some really nice, heartwarming stories from their time in the shop too, so at least from their perspective, it truly does seem to help, at least a certain population suffering from cancer.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: And not helping in the sense of like cure their cancer, [crosstalk 00:05:49] but like-

Ashkahn: It cures it. It cures it. Float tanks cure cancer, I think is what we’re trying to say here.

Graham: But definitely helps with the relief, and just the perception of pain, and they’re ability to kind of have a good day, day to day.

Ashkahn: So I mean other than that, there may be just like other normal medical concerns. I mean, certain people have maybe specific medical equipment they’re dealing with. There are things going on with their body that you’re going to have to again, probably reference them to their doctor rather than just taking wild swings at answering them yourselves like we’re doing. And yeah, really just play it safe, and at the end of the day, hopefully if everything is kind of setup, and their doctors okay with it, and all that sort of stuff is good, then it should be great. You should be helping them out.

Graham: And if you have other medical questions for us, for Dr. Grashkahmn over here, go to FloatTankSolutions.com/medicalquestions, and we will answer those for you.

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