REACTIVATION OF ORAL LINGUAL HERPES BY CHLORINATED SWIMMING POOL WATER - A CASE-REPORT

The authors describe the case of a highly stressed 36-year-old man who experienced ten or more painful episodes per year of recurrent oral-l ingual herpes simplex virus 1, which were only partially responsive to acyclovir therapy for three years. A three-year diary of activities, personal stresses, concurrent infections, local trauma, and other poss ible psychogenic, somatogenic, and environmental events was used syste matically to attempt to pair the stresses with the recurrent herpes ep isodes. Chlorinated swimming pool water seems to have been the trigger ing agent of the recurrent herpes simplex virus 1 episodes due to its temporal correlation and the greater than twenty-four-month asymptomat ic period after the patient discontinued swimming in chlorinated water , but continued to swim in fresh and salt water, along with his normal pursuit of all other activities and habits.