News and Events

 Amendment to Lake Rules,  June 30, 2010

ARTICLE IX

MISCELLANEOUS

1.                   These Lake Rules may be amended from time to time by the Board of Directors of the Association. The Lake Rules, as amended from time to time, shall be made available to all Owners upon request.

2.                   There is a punitive system for the violation of the Lake Rules. Any Owner who shall have violated, permitted, authorized, or allowed the violation of these Lake Rules by a Family Member or Guest shall be subject to fines and suspensions as provided in these Lake Rules. The Board of Directors, at its discretion, may issue warnings, may levy fines up to $1,000.00 or recompense commensurate with the damages caused, and/or may suspend use of the Lake and Lake Facilities for a reasonable and appropriate period of time. The Board of Directors, after written application for reinstatement after a suspension is made, has the discretion to reinstate Lake privileges to the Owner and the Family members and Guests.

Take steps to prevent swimmers' itch

Every summer I see a bunch of kids in the office following a trip to a picturesque inland lake who come in itching and rashy with red pimples and welts everywhere, especially in areas where they were in prolonged contact with lake water. This is swimmers' itch.

Swimmers' itch is a rash caused by an allergic reaction to a parasite found in bird poop that will burrow under the skin of humans even though we aren't a good host. The parasite causes the body to respond aggressively to try to expel it and that response causes the intensely itchy rash. Because the parasite lives in shallow water waiting for a good host, kids are at particular risk. Children tend to play in shallow water, wading for longer periods of time and as a result have a significant exposure to the parasite. Adults can get it, too, but because we tend to be in the water for shorter stretches of time and often will go out into deeper, clearer waters, our exposure is less.

Preventing swimmers' itch can be difficult. Folklore about using Vaseline on your skin before swimming, putting on bug repellent or coating the skin with oil before entering the water have never been scientifically proven to make a difference, although the idea of creating a barrier between the skin and parasite does make sense. The best proven strategies to minimize swimmers' itch are to roughly towel off after wading or swimming, to remove your bathing suit as soon as possible to prevent trapped parasites from burrowing in and avoiding areas with a lot of marshy plants or snails because these are areas with higher concentrations of the parasite.

Once you have swimmers' itch, though, treating the symptoms is all you can do. Using anti-itch creams like cortisone, taking oral Benadryl and sometimes using an oral steroid like Prednisone can diminish the symptoms. Whether or not you treat the symptoms it will take a few days to a week or more for the rash and itching to resolve.

What is "swimmer's itch" and how can I avoid it?

Swimmer's itch is a troublesome itching rash that can affect swimmers after they emerge from the water. The rash is caused by penetration of a tiny larval parasitic flatworm that normally resides in waterfowl and a certain species of aquatic snail. The burrowing parasite quickly dies, but the body remains at the site and can be the stimulus of acute inflammatory reaction. Like any allergic reaction, the degree of discomfort and bodily reaction differs with the sensitivity of the individual and degree of infestation. In some people, considerable pain, fever and severe itching may result along with noticeable swelling of affected areas. Some bathers appear to be immune. Welts normally disappear within a week but red coloration may persist some time longer. The inflamed areas resemble chigger bites, but differ in distribution on the body. Chiggers tend to attack the legs, groin, waistline, and underarm areas, whereas swimmers' itch can be distributed over any exposed area of the body. Swimmers' itch does not produce watery blisters like poison ivy, does not spread from the point of penetration of the parasite, and is not contagious like bacterial infections.

Outbreaks of swimmers' itch are related to the distribution of infected waterfowl and vary from year to year in any water body, but are generally most common in July when snail infections mature and parasite production increases. Hot weather can contribute by speeding development of the parasites. Infestations often disappear later in the summer when the snail host dies out.

Extensive control measures using toxic chemicals are possible but usually not warranted. Individuals can control the effects of exposure by rubbing exposed surfaces of the body briskly with a towel after leaving the water. Bathers who remain in the water and follow this procedure upon leaving fair better than those who enter and leave the water frequently or are playing intermittently in shallow water. Taking a shower in water different from the lake water as soon as possible after leaving will also help. These procedures crush or remove the tiny parasites from the skin before they can penetrate the body.