Is there any Reason to Not Let Someone Float during Menstruation? – DSP 203

Some float centers include a restriction in their wavers stating that people can’t or shouldn’t float during their menstrual cycles. Is there a valid reason for this?

Graham and Ashkahn clear up the confusion around this situation and why float centers started doing this and what every center should know about policies like this.

Listen to Just the Audio

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

Graham: Alright.

Ashkahn: Welcome everybody.

Graham: I am Graham.

Ashkahn: And I am Ashkahn.

Graham: And today’s question is.

Ashkahn: And today’s question is.

Graham: “Should we have a policy regarding no floating on the day you start your period? I’ve seen other centers that prohibit floating for females on the day they start their periods. Is this necessary?” Well it probably makes more sense than females and males.

Ashkahn: So what’s the concern here? Is it just a sanitation concern for the float tank, right? It’s not like health concern for a woman.

Graham: Well, the only thing that I’ve heard is about the stinging in the nether regions.

Ashkahn: Yeah, but I’ve never-

Graham: Can be influenced by your menstrual cycle as well.

Ashkahn: Can be? I haven’t heard of that correlated with specifically people starting their period or anything.

Graham: Well, yeah, maybe. I don’t know about that. I don’t know. I know that the period cycle in general can be related to some more PH discomfort related to the water.

Ashkahn: Alright. Maybe there’s some murky information in there that no one seems to know, like-

Graham: The point is that’s not why the centers are putting this on there.

Ashkahn: They’re putting it on there for sanitation reasons-

Graham: They’re putting it on there for sanitation reasons-

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: They’re afraid about blood getting in their float tank.

Ashkahn: I think it’s silly. I don’t think it’s a necessary requirement.

Graham: And that’s not a necessary requirement for going in a hot tub or a swimming pool.

Ashkahn: And there’s a couple reasons. One, they make waterproof tampons and stuff like that, that people can put in if they were to go swimming or whatever. We just have some in our shop in case people need them. But that’s a good solution, and even if you were to get menstrual blood or whatever in your float tank, it’s not very likely that that’s going to get anyone sick.

Graham: Yeah, in general any bloodborne illness is not going to survive contact with even regular water.

Ashkahn: Yeah-

Graham: Much less float tank water.

Ashkahn: If you look at this, the CDC has a guideline for contamination in pools. And one of the things they mention in there is that if you were to get blood in a pool, they basically require no action. They say nothing needs to be done because they haven’t really found a way of very effectively communicating diseases.

Graham: Basically the stuff that can survive in your blood, bloodborne illness is designed to really survive in your blood. So if it gets mixed with water or anything else, it totally deactivates it and doesn’t make it infectious anymore for those. At least again, that seems to be the case for anything, for any bloodborne illness the CDC is worried about communicating.

Ashkahn: Yeah. And your filter should be able to filter stuff out so it’s not like it’s going to be gross in the float tank for the next person or anything like that.

Graham: So the thinking about it is maybe a little weird or you’re like, “huh is that just blood getting in my water or something?” Ultimately even if it is, it’s not concerning.

Ashkahn: So I think it’s silly. I don’t think it should be something that float centers stop people from doing.

Graham: No, and to trace back how this stuff happens too. We see it all the time. There’s only so many float centers that are out there when you’re new and coming up. Exactly like the person who sent in this question did. They look at other float centers, and what they’re putting on their waivers. And probably this center who put that on their waiver saw it somewhere else that someone else just decided to put on their waiver. And who knows where that came from. And there’s this copycat thing that goes down the line where every time, you’re just like “well I don’t know. I’m not an expert in this, so I guess I’ll take the safe decision and include it because including more items on the waiver is at least safer than potentially not including them and something going wrong.”

So it’s people copying and doing it out of this sense of wanting to feel safe because someone else thought there was a concern there. We don’t think there’s a concern-

Ashkahn: Nor have we had any problems with it over the years.

Graham: Also no one’s going to uphold a case in court if you come and sue us for bad advice, just so you guys know. Just because it’s our opinion. If you try to tell a judge that you took the advice of us, and then you play the intros for them that we do, they’ll be like, this is obviously a comedy show-

Ashkahn: Be dismissed very quickly-

Graham: Yeah, so don’t come back and complain about our bad answers.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Another bad answer for today. We’ve never stopped it. I think it’s silly to put on there. I just think it’s a concern without any actual potential downside that could happen. There’s no reason to stop people from floating.

Graham: Yeah, and usually how we phrase it or I see centers phrase it is if you would feel comfortable going into a hot tub or a swimming pool or something like that, you should feel comfortable getting in the float tank with the same protocols I guess.

Ashkahn: Cool, so that’s it.

Graham: Just a couple of guys-

Ashkahn: A couple guys-

Graham: Talking about the menstrual cycle.

Ashkahn: Yeah. With a lot of confidence and expertise.

Graham: So if you have any other questions, head on over to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.

Ashkahn: Put them in there. We’ll read them, and we’ll answer them, just like we did today.

Graham: Same level of diligence and quality. Alright, thanks everybody.

Ashkahn: Have a good one.

Latest Blog Posts