Brain Eating Amoeba from a Neti Pot

[aceinyerface]

Heads up, for you Neti Pot users...

There have been a couple of deaths from people using untreated well water in their Neti Pot. The brain eating amoeba which is usually harmless when ingested, is deadly when introduced to the nasal cavity.

Boiling the water or using distilled water is the way around this.

Boiling the water seems easier since I can use the water to disinfect the Neti Pot.

 

[wbj509]

Roger that - I have Septic, so I'll be boiling thanks

 

[rickboone1]

okay

 

[plpenn]

That's nuts!

I am not saying that it's BS just crazy... Something I would never think of.

 

[Baloosh]

Do you have sources you can cite for this?

 

[jadam318]

I actually heard this from a friend of mine last week. I'm not saying that she is a proper source for documentation, but that rumor is going around, anyway. Weird.

 

[rajagra]

Interesting. I was wondering if it was OK to assume that water that is safe to drink is safe enough for this use. Clearly it may not be.
I've been using distilled anyway, but it's the cleaning phase I was thinking of.

http://blogs.webmd.com/breaking-news/2011/12/brain-eating-amoeba-in-neti-pots.html

 

[professorchaos]

Damn. I thought this was going to be a thread about eating brains.

 

[aceinyerface]

Do you have sources you can cite for this?

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/...oeba-fatalities-linked-to-common-cold-remedy/

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/cont...011/12/29/local_health_officials_urge_no.html

"In each case, the 51-year-old DeSoto Parish woman and the 20-year-old St. Bernard Parish man used well water to fill their Neti pots, said Lisa Faust, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana health department."

 

[aceinyerface]

Damn. I thought this was going to be a thread about eating brains.

I can Hijack my own thread and talk about yummy squirrel brains...

 

[oc_in_fw]

Damn. I thought this was going to be a thread about eating brains.

I guess we better keep an eye on you in the event of a zombie apocolypse.

 

[The Pontificator]

Keep in mind these two events occurred in Louisiana...an area of the country where the temperatures rarely if ever drop below freezing much less even reach freezing.

When they say "tap water" is might have been well water.

 

[professorchaos]

I can Hijack my own thread and talk about yummy squirrel brains...

Well you could have. But I beat you to it

I guess we better keep an eye on you in the event of a zombie apocolypse.

indeed. I'll probably be one of the first to go bad.

 

[cb91710]

Do you have sources you can cite for this?

I saw this about 3-4 weeks ago that there was one death in Louisiana from this.
The amount of crap that most municipal systems pump into the water supply, I'd hazard a guess that this is not something most of us need to be concerned about.
The amoeba is pretty sensitive to temperature, needing warm water.
The only other reports that have hit the news in the last few years were a couple of kids that picked it up from Havasu.

I have a feeling that even those on well-water are not going to have any issues due to the temperature... but I'd probably boil well water before using it for anything anyways.


Edit: Here's one of the stories... http://www.king5.com/health/Brain-i...oeba-kills-3-one-from-neti-pot-128037093.html
http://greensboro.injuryboard.com/m...fested-water-in-neti-pot.aspx?googleid=293382

NPR reports a 2nd case: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...t-death-from-amoeba-prompts-tap-water-warning

Only 120 cases in the last 50 years.