Showers linked to chronic lung disease

CINCINNATI - Taking a hot, steamy shower could be putting your health at risk.  There's a chronic lung disease that is hitting women and doctors say it can start in the shower.
   
Mary Lou had been traveling back and forth to California to care for her dying mother, when her coughing started. Her cough kept getting worse and she says she would cough up tissues full of stuff.  After weeks of coughing to the point of exhaustion, she went to see a specialist.

The specialist said she has non-tuberculous mycobacterium complex.  NTM is a waterborne bacteria that often hits women around age 50 who are slim, Caucasian and otherwise in good health.

"You can find this bacteria in shower heads and faucets," said Dr. Carl Fichtenbaum of the Infectious Disease Center at UC Health.

Doctors nationwide and here in the Tri-State are seeing an increase in the number of NTM cases.

"I would say that in Cincinnati we see probably a few dozen of these cases every year," said Dr. Fichtenbaum.

Fichtenbaum says some groups are more at risk for this.

"There are certain groups of people who tend to have more problems, folks who have chronic lung problems, they can have more problems with this," she said.

Experts say there is evidence linking showers to NTM.  A study headed by professor Norman Pace at UC Boulder found that found 30 percent of shower heads harbor significant levels of disease-causing bacteria.

"NTM pulmonary disease is heavily under-diagnosed and probably more prevalent in the community than we think," Pace said.

Pace added that many people can mistake the warning signs on their shower head.
 
"These buildups that people usually think of as calcium deposits or soap scum, are really biological," Pace said.

Pace says all of us are bathed in bacteria every day. Most is harmless, but in the shower, potentially harmful bacteria have a direct route to your respiratory system.

"There's a aerosolization of the particles so you have a mist and the particle size is small enough that you can breath that in and it can get into your lungs," said Dr. Fichtenbaum.
 
And that includes bacteria breeding in your household pipes, where the water sits between uses.

Mary Lou often stood in a steaming hot shower for 30 minutes at a time before she was diagnosed.

She had a portion of her lung removed and will be taking antibiotics for years to come.

"It's hard to enjoy your life when you feel not so hot," said Mary Lou.

Doctors say this could be a large public health issue in the next few years. To help prevent the problem experts suggest removing and soaking shower heads in a germ-killing cleaning agent. You can also increase the temperature in your water heater to 140 degrees to kill harmful bacteria.