Not sure if this is the forum for this, but if not, please move it to the appropriate forum.

My son has alot of allergies and very sensitive skin, which I have to consider when I decide how to manage our pool. Here are my questions related to that:

1) I am experiencing some eye irritation when I swim in my pool . My kids and wife are not really. I know that pH can cause eye irritiation. My pH is ~ 8.0. Is that eye enough to cause eye irritation? I am awaiting delivery of my Taylor test kit (eta Monday or Tuesday) to do the final balancing, but I did add a little dry acid to try to bring it back down slowly and plan to add a little each day over the weekend and test using the $8 test kit from Walmart. Definitely taking it cautious so may not make much headway each day. Just wondering if there are any other factors I should be considering.

2) My son seems to have an allergy to Borax. My wife has tried to use it on his laundry a couple of times, and he broke out into a rash. I have read about the benefits of borates and would like to be able to use Borax to raise pH (I dropped a bunch of cash on the pool store type and would rather not have to do that ongoing). My question is this....is 30 - 50 ppm of borates anywhere near the concentration that you might find in a washing machine?