Red tide rolled back into the Sarasota and Manatee County area over the past week, and although levels appear low and patchy local beach visitors could still experience respiratory irritation and other health complications.
The emergency room medical director for the HCA Florida Sarasota Doctors Hospital, Nicholas Fusco, answered questions about the impact of red tide on humans during a Q&A with local media hosted by the hospital on Thursday.
Red tide is known to cause respiratory irritation in people, although it can affect those with chronic pulmonary diseases and the elderly more severely. Fusco indicated symptoms often disappear soon after people affected leave areas affected by red tide. He recommends visiting a medical provider if symptoms do not subside, or if they become severe.
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“People will just start getting a cough, maybe a little chest pain when breathing. A lot of the symptom control is just supportive care, so removing yourself from the environment … and using your home medications if you do have chronic lung disease. But should the symptoms persist despite those treatments, that’s when we want you to come and seek care just to make sure there’s nothing else going on.”
“Typically, symptoms will get reversed with supportive care so if you are able to get treatment quickly hopefully only a couple of hours. With more frequent exposure the toxin can build up in the pulmonary tissues, and symptoms can last longer or take longer to treat. That’s why if you start feeling symptoms, avoid that area entirely.
“Typically people with chronic lung diseases will have inhalers, nebulizer treatments at home. So should they start developing symptoms we would want you to try those first. If that doesn’t completely resolve the symptoms there may be need to prescribe steroids or additional treatments that we can provide.”
“Not being able to breathe is obviously a big deal, so that’s why we would want you to remove yourself from that situation. Maybe get into a car or somewhere that you can get some air that’s filtered through something. You don’t want your symptoms to get worse.”
“Really, we look at the demographics. If people are saying, ‘We were at the beach and we’re coughing a lot,’ that’s when we really fine tune and say, ‘Okay, this is probably due to this bloom that we know about.’ If they were in their house and they are getting the sniffles and wheezing, definitely more allergy related.”
“With the bloom just starting (to affect the area), not yet, but I do anticipate we will see respiratory complaints from beachgoers − particularly those with chronic illnesses. Last year we did see an influx after the blooms did start. Many times we will see an increase in pulmonary complaints before we know the bloom is there, and then we’ll see the effects on fish later.”
“A lot of the time you have a lot (gastro-intestinal) upset, nothing too much more than that, but we definitely advise not eating local fish if there is an active bloom going on.”
