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Fatal brain-eating amoeba may have come from woman's neti pot
A Seattle woman rinsed her sinuses with tap water. A year later, she died of a brain-eating amoeba. Her case is reported this week in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases [open, DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2018.09.013] [DX].
The 69-year-old, whose name was not given, had a lingering sinus infection. For a month, she tried to get rid of it using a neti pot with tap water instead of using sterile water, as is recommended. Neti pots are used to pour saline into one nostril and out of the other to irrigate the sinuses, usually to fight allergies or infections.
According to the doctors who treated the woman, the non-sterile water that she used it thought to have contained Balamuthia mandrillaris, an amoeba that over the course of weeks to months can cause a very rare and almost always fatal infection in the brain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @06:13PM (1 child)
>"... thought it [sterilized water] was not worth the effort"
I always boil the water I use in my neti pot. I make up a half gallon at a time. It takes a little planning, but very little effort. I boil the water for a few minutes in my tea kettle, then turn off the heat and let it cool for about eight hours, usually overnight. Then I pour it into a bottle and add a tablespoon of salt and 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda. When I use it, I fill the pot and heat it in the microwave for about 27 seconds to take the chill off. Rinsing my sinuses after being outside during hay fever season has made nasal sprays such as Nasacort or Beconase mostly unnecessary for me. I didn't know about balamuthia mandrillaris. I was worried about nagleria fowleri. There are probably other organisms that would provide an unfortunate experience if they got up your nose, so a little time spent getting sterile water is worth it.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Sunday December 09 2018, @10:05PM
Thanks for the nice receipt. I think I will give it a try.
When I said i was not giving it a try it was because I was thinking of buying bottled sterile water. The concern, is that as pointed in your receipt, you need to boil it somewhere and boiling pot may have surfaces which are not sterile. Thus when the water passes through these surfaces, like the nozzle, it may get contaminated. The same for the storage bottle and neti pot. Do you think that such a thoroughness is not required?
Do you have any special care to clean the neti pot after usage besides putting water and letting it dry?
How long have you been using this receipt?