In all my years of swimming in a lake, I never experienced any adverse reactions from the water — though I did get sun poisoning a time or two. However, I began to notice that when I would swim in chlorinated swimming pools, it would dry out my skin, turn my blonde hair green, and cause my ears to clog up and kind of hurt, diminishing their ability to function at full auditory capacity. Or said simply, it affected my ability to hear well.