The woman contracted a fatal infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba and died eight days after developing symptoms.
A Texas woman died from an infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba days after she cleaned her sinuses using tap water, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case report.
The woman, an otherwise healthy 71-year-old, developed “severe neurologic symptoms,” including fever, headache and an altered mental status, four days after she filled a nasal irrigation device with tap water from her RV’s water system at a Texas campsite, the CDC report said.
She was treated for primary amebic meningoencephalitis — a brain infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, often referred to as the “brain-eating amoeba.” Despite treatment, the woman experienced seizures and died from the infection eight days after she developed symptoms, the agency said.
As a fellow American who hasn’t had to put up with this nonsense in my state but still lives in this era of fascist billionaire overrun, I now have a better idea what it must feel like to live in Texas. But Jesus fuck, fix your
waterutilitiesgovernmenteducationsocietyshit.She has just been nominated to be RFK jr’s deputy.
I only clean my head holes with hard liquor.
This is safe, if you boil the water.
I’m getting convinced kennedy’s worm caused this.
Skill issue, didn’t watch House M.D.
she didn’t die from lupus though
Blows my mind, all the people that use anything besides freshly filtered boiled and/or filtered water for this.
They even make nasal irrigation devices with built-in filters! Mine’s a store brand from a local pharmacy.
You want sterile, not filtered, water
Turns out mine’s not store brand, it just looks generic enough to be store brand. They claim it meets CDC recommendations for nasal rinsing with tap water. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Yes. Using tap water is safe.
And you’re supposed to boil the tap water
Not according to the literature that comes with the device.
Do they say you don’t have to boil it?
Or do they just not explicitly mention tbr obvious?
The built-in water filter meets the CDC recommendation for nasal washing with tap water*. This provides peace of mind, while also eliminating the cost of bottled water or the inconvenience of boiling and pre-filtering tap water†.
†The Micro-Filtered System is intended as a final filter for tap water that is known to be safe for drinking.
*This product has been tested and certified to meet NSF/ANSI Std. 53, a drinking water standard for cyst reduction.
[Step 5] Fill the bottle with warm tap water to the 8 oz mark indicated on the bottle. Make sure the white check valve located on the shoulder of the bottle is present and in place. Test water temperature before using. Use saline solution promptly, do not save or store for future use.
Source: PDF instructions from the page I previously linked to.
It blows my mind, that the richest country in one of the most developed areas on the globe is unable to provide save tap water.
In most places, the tap water is pretty safe (old lead pipes and neglected areas notwithstanding).
N. Fowelri requires something like 30 times the standard chlorine dose to kill. In municipal water systems, the most common source is biofilm that builds up in pipes in the water system and more often in the home. This is especially true for older homes and poorly maintained apartment buildings.
I know it’s all the rage right now to shit on the US when and where one can, but our water system isn’t the place to do it.
Why? Countries become rich by greed.
I bet every “richest country in the world” in the history of earth had horrible poverty. How else would they become the richest country in the world? It’s kinda an expected prerequisite
Blame it on the idiots banning Flouridation and the like. Sadly, there’s likely a large overlap with Netti-pot users.
There’s useful paranoia, and then there’s this.
Whoa whoa whoa, a neti pot isn’t some high energy life changing quartz or a magnetic bracelet that’s supposed to realign your chacras. Neti pots have real, legitimate medical use and are recommended by many ENTs and allergists for a range of medical conditions. They also have clear warnings to use sterile water.
Nailed it with your last line.
They should be washed occasionally, too.
apparently she was using stale water thats been sitting around for quite some time, this breeds bacteria, and amoebas. amoebas love to eat bacteria so they are found where tons of bacteria are. this is the case for legionaries disease, the bacteria love to infest amoebas.
the other kind of amoeba that can similar symptoms that also resulted in a brain eating form, is balumuthia amoeba.
Dude, i live in a city with some of the best tap water in the world. That has fuck all to do with this.
tap water from her RV’s water system
So basically water from a cistern. Not the public water system.
Even if it was tap water, it’s safe to drink and cook with, not necessarily to wash your frontal lobe with.
Well it shouldn’t. We’re taking a lot of knowledge for granted when normally, we aren’t all that bright in the first place.
A lot of the theory learned isn’t met in practice, so it’s difficult to understand or recognize it.
I mean, come on, how often does ‘brain-eating amoeba’ even come up as a subject in day to day life? Hard to pay attention to stuff that doesn’t frequent your area of activities.
Yeah, but i also dont put water up my nose to cleanse what my mucous membranes already do.
I see stories about it at least once a year, and its the sort of thing that sticks out, even though I rarely flush my sinuses.
Well, I don’t. It’s the first time in 7 to 10 years since I last heard of it. It’s not common at all for me and doesn’t even cross my mind because I lacked reoccurring contact with this kind of information to have it a priority.
This difference in knowledge is also a difference in awareness , so it’s not that baffling that most people don’t share the same kinds of wariness.
We don’t know the same things so we pay attention to things in separate ways.
I have heard of getting brain eating amoebas, mostly from swimming in lakes or still water. I think this is the first time I’ve heard about them coming from using a nettle pot. Looking it up, it looks like a lot of cases come from nettle pots, but “a lot” is relative. There are only a dozen or so cases a year from any source. I still wonder if any of those cases really come from city water or if they are from well and cistern water like this lady used. Either way, following the instructions that come with the pot would have saved those people.
They theoretically could come from tap water. Reservoirs of treated water can be open to the atmosphere, and accessible to wildlife. Chlorine and dilution mitigate most of the risk, but not all of it.
Blows my mind
Not as much as it blows their minds.
Save me a seat at your table in Hell.
Can this happen in Sweden as well? 'Cos I clean mine with shower water almost every shower.
Use distilled ONLY. With good chlorinated city water systems it’s still very unlikely to happen, but it’s such a horrible way to go, just get some distilled from the store.
The amoeba can survive chlorination, that’s why boiled or distilled is necessary
Yep! It’s the reason that every netty pot tells you to use distilled water.
I don’t use those, I just sorta throw it up there with my hands and a deep inhale. Feel it coming down my throat.
It is not safe to do it that way. The water either needs to be boiled or distilled to prevent parasites and diseases.
A’ight, thx 👍🏻
I believe the amoeba grows in warm water, which is why hot springs in New Zealand are at risk. So hopefully you’re more safe! You might want to check better info than me though!
I wonder if she’d just had rhinoplasty. A friend of mine is in recovery from that; she has to do this kind of sinus irrigation thing twice a day.
Neti pots and similar have very, very clear warnings that the water needs to be sterilized.
Is it the powder that I’m dumping into the water every time? I was just doing it to follow instructions. If it’s because of this, then thank goodness!
That powder is salt and will not sterilize the water. Used distilled water.
From this point on I absolutely will! Thanks!
It’s saline. So salt and baking soda
Doesn’t boiled filtered water work fine too?
Boiled, yes. Filtered…well there’s so many different filtration methods of varying intensity the safest answer is “no”
Because someone’s gonna use a britta jug…
Filtered and boiled, not or.
Don’t need to both
I’m gonna and you can’t stop me!
It does.
To be fair: some things you shouldn’t cheap out on (as noted by the deceased woman in this post).
Is that cheaping out? How do you know for certain that supposedly distilled water was properly distilled, stored, and never contaminated before or after opening?
Bonus risk if you live in the United States where they’re gutting federal safety agencies
If you’re gonna do that level of paranoia, the easy fix is to boil or distill your own water
Reread my post lol
I mean… I get the FDA isn’t the trustful advisory it once was, but if I had a few dollars to choose between the “sterilized” gallon jug and a nasal blast from a Texan KOA campsite, I know what’d I’d choose.
I’d go with neither and use water I personally filtered and sterilized for the sake of certainty and safety.
Stop cleaning your sinuses in general, your body creates that mucus for a reason.
It creates mucus to trap germs and other irritants. Nothing wrong with helping your body remove these from your body.
Yeah, you have two methods to deal with the mucus: expectorating or digestion. I prefer to aid the expectoration. I use the NeilMed bottle, works better than any neti pot I tried, thing is a godsend when I need it.
My libertarian uncle swore basically anything could be cured with a neti pot. He forced me to use one when I was having issues with allergies.
It didn’t help one bit and was one of the most uncomfortable experiences in my life. This just turns me off to it even more.
most uncomfortable experiences in my life
I’m not a medical doctor… but yeah, a neti pot won’t fix a broken bone. That being said it should NOT be unpleasant at all! You should be able to breath, talk, heck even sing while using it. The water MUST be at exactly the right temperature (if you pour it on the back of your hand, it should not feel warm or cold) and the salt must be precisely the measured amount, not a gram more or less. This way it will not burn your nostril or give you any kind of reaction, just water flowing. If you do this right, which honestly takes a minute more, then it’s not disturbing at all.
Yeah, you’re not supposed to use it when you’re fully congested because the water will just get trapped and sit.
There’s a bit of a learning curve and people hesitating can end up with the uncomfortable sensation of “water up your nose” but it really is awesome and life changing once you figure it out.
you’re not supposed to use it when you’re fully congested
Yes, ideally you use it BEFORE precisely to prevent this kind of state.
I’ll take your word for it. I’m never doing it again.
Snorfing amoebae up one’s nose turns out to have consequences.
I’ll just keep chilling out safely over here on Team Blow Your Nose With A Tissue.
You can use steam to break up mucus, making it easier to use a tissue
Where I live (France) the recommendation is to take lukewarm water, add salt, and that’s it.
Is texas water catastrophically bad or am I totally wrong (or both)?
I don’t know the state of French plumbing, but there’s always the possibility of contamination unless it’s sterilized as it comes out of the tap.
But yes, Texas water probably is pretty bad.
That’s not safe. You should boil the water.
You are correct, but there seems to be a strain of commeters here that don’t even understand the difference between filtered and boiled water let alone germ theory or the fact that brain eating amoebas aren’t everywhere on the planet…
Same thing in Belgium. ENT confirms that if you are in a normal random city you can use tap water, as-is.
If you are traveling to another country or in a temporary setup then yes take extra precaution, like boiling and/or distilled.
Same thing in Germany. Just checked — no warning anywhere on the packaging and I’ve never heard about anything like this happening.
It was from the water tank of an rv.
But also, the quality of water systems in the us are more localized to smaller regional areas and not uniform state wide. Especially not in a large state like texas.
It was from the wster tank of an rv.
Holy hell, yeah I would be cautious to drink it 😬
Every neti pot I’ve ever had recommends either:
A) Warming distilled water and adding salt
Or
B) Boiling filtered tap water, adding salt, and letting it cool down to warm.
What country 😁 ?
US, but I don’t know that should matter. Even in France, water comes from a variety of sources and boiling / using distilled water eliminates risk, no matter how small.
In my family’s commune (France), there’s a lot of calcium in the tap water - such that you could actually feel it on your skin and in your hair after a shower, appliances like the coffee maker got crusty deposits with use. My grandmother only drank bottled water, I wouldn’t put that through my sinuses even if it were boiled.
Well, regulations are important, I wouldn’t drink indian tap water but I’d clean my nasal cavities with swedish tap water without a thought.
It’s probably more to it like how hot it is too. And not letting it sitting around in some plastic container like in the article 😵💫.
On a side note, yeah lots of bottled water here, better than soda I guess. Personlly I have a soda stream machine.
