Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water • Hacker News Board

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#91

Post by cortesoft » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 10:04 PM UTC

dhimes wrote: post #69

cortesoft wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it was well water. According to the article: > Amoebas may be found in fresh-water sources around Puget Sound such as wells, but aren’t present in city-treated water, according to Liz Coleman, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Public Health division of the state’s Department of Health.

Right. I wasn't sure if Coleman was saying "it couldn't have happened from her tap water, because it's treated" or if the implication was that the victim had a well. I like your interpretation- the latter.

Yeah, people get confused by the idea of well water sometimes. Many people think of well water as the old fashioned, bucket on a rope, kind. In reality, many people get their tap water from a local well.

The main difference between well water and non-well water is that well water is not centrally treated by the water department. There will be filters and stuff, but it is not treated the same way.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#92

Post by 0db532a0 » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 10:22 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #7

Person dies under unusual, rare circumstances. Happens every day, there are nearly 8 billion of us. Why is this news?

I found it quite an interesting article to read.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#93

Post by cortesoft » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 10:23 PM UTC

dom96 wrote: post #66

cortesoft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, but I am never sure how that is supposed to be practical. You need to use warm water, which is easy with tap water, but hard to do quickly with distilled or boiled water. I know it has risks, but I still use normal tap water. From what I have read, all of the cases are from people using well water, never from city provided, chlorinated water. It actually says this in the article, too.

Can you explain why you use a neti-pot? I don't know anyone who uses one and I don't really understand the reasons behind it.

It REALLY clears out your sinuses if you have a lot of mucus (from allergies or a cold). You know how when you blow your nose, you never get everything out? Some of the mucus comes out, but some is driven up into your sinuses because the air is coming from the middle (imagine a tube full of water,and you blow into a hole in the middle... half the water will be blown in each direction)

Neti pot will get all of the mucus out (especially when i do it first thing in the morning, before blowing my nose). It comes back, of course, but having a few minutes of mucus free breathing when you have a bad cold or allergies is amazing.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#94

Post by deepsun » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 10:56 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #68

cortesoft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, but I am never sure how that is supposed to be practical. You need to use warm water, which is easy with tap water, but hard to do quickly with distilled or boiled water. I know it has risks, but I still use normal tap water. From what I have read, all of the cases are from people using well water, never from city provided, chlorinated water. It actually says this in the article, too.

You shouldn't be using water from the hot tap even just for drinking or cooking, let alone putting in a neti pot. Water from a hot water tank can contain high levels of dissolved contaminants since it sits in your plumbing system for extended periods at high temperatures.

Huh? If tap water is contaminated (by, say, metals or salts from plumbing system pipes), then boiling won't decontaminate it either.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#95

Post by deepsun » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #90

scythe wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No cooking? Even, say, boiling potatoes? I always use filtered water if I'm planning to consume it, but I thought I could get away with the sink if I was throwing it out. That's news to me, I'll have to boil cold water from now on.

I wouldn't worry as much about boiled potatoes as I would something like soaking/cooking grains. It's a matter of your level of concern. I rinse dry goods and and vegetables with tap water, and steam with tap water, but I use expensive water for anything else. Mostly because I don't discard the water. Either the food absorbs all the water, or I accept a mushy, stewy, or soupy consistency. Steaming is better if you're…

After some googling, I concluded that filters in good-tap-water neighborhoods do more harm than good -- they filter out nutrients that we do need from water.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#96

Post by undersuit » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 11:19 PM UTC

deepsun wrote: post #94

shawnz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be using water from the hot tap even just for drinking or cooking, let alone putting in a neti pot. Water from a hot water tank can contain high levels of dissolved contaminants since it sits in your plumbing system for extended periods at high temperatures.

Huh? If tap water is contaminated (by, say, metals or salts from plumbing system pipes), then boiling won't decontaminate it either.

The hot water in your water tank may contain an excess of salt deposits, leeched metals, and rusts that you don't want to consume.

Cold water has less solubility of most substances than hot water and it spends less time sitting in a hot container of those substances.

Therefore, use the cold water to make hot water on your stove and regularly clean the kettle: https://www.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/7uu0jz...

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#97

Post by hughdbrown » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 11:23 PM UTC

So, these medical people did not consult House? https://house.fandom.com/wiki/Henry_(patient)

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#98

Post by chaostheory » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 11:40 PM UTC

jimmyswimmy wrote: post #49

capkutay wrote: post #2

Sounds like she was using a neti-pot. I thought most of the neti-pot products made it pretty clear that you're supposed to use previously boiled or distilled bottled water. Maybe they need to make it more clear that the consequences of using tap water can be pretty dangerous.

In the case of Neil-Med, the documentation I have retained says to use previously boiled or properly filtered water (they provide some examples) when mixing. And they say not to use tap water. But they don't inform the user of the potential hazard of using otherwise safe-to-consume tap water. Worse, the bottle (mine is a squeeze bottle) doesn't have any reminder not to use tap water, at all. It would seem this would…

Doesn't this company direct you to use their salt packets as well?

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#99

Post by olyjohn » Fri, Dec 14, 2018, 11:56 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #72

shawnz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be using water from the hot tap even just for drinking or cooking, let alone putting in a neti pot. Water from a hot water tank can contain high levels of dissolved contaminants since it sits in your plumbing system for extended periods at high temperatures.

No cooking? Even, say, boiling potatoes? I always use filtered water if I'm planning to consume it, but I thought I could get away with the sink if I was throwing it out. That's news to me, I'll have to boil cold water from now on.

The lady in the article got the infection after using a water filter.

This leaves 2 possibilities that I can see.

1. The filter didn't do it's job. I thought that a good filter would filter all organisms (or like 99.9%). I'm told by people that you can drink out of a swamp or mud puddle with a good filter.

2. The filter does work, but she didn't maintain her filter. Maybe the dirty filter actually was a nice place to cultivate the amoebas? I would be curious if an unchanged filter can actually increase your chance of infection. At best though, the dirty filter wasn't able to filter this organism.

Re: Rare brain-eating amoebas killed woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water

#100

Post by chipperyman573 » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

tj-teej wrote: post #17

chipperyman573 wrote: post #4

I had surgery on my sinuses and and have to do this as well. The product I use (Neilmed sinus rinse) has warnings ALL OVER the box, bottle, and in the instruction pamphlet to only use previously boiled water, distilled water, freshly opened bottled water, or water that has somehow otherwise been filtered. It specifically says NOT to use tap water. They also have a website (that has recently been updated to mention th…

> this is really darwinism at work That is cruel, disgusting and frankly a misrepresentation of Darwinism.

I'm sorry, why do you think so? I'm not saying she deserved to die (in an ethical sense) or that I'm happy she's dead - quite the opposite, a death is never a happy thing for anyone involved and I'm sure this woman is no exception.

What I'm trying to get at is, if someone uses a medical appliance in a way that is stated very clearly to potentially cause risks, and then they die as a direct result of this improper usage of the medical device, it isn't necessarily as unexpected as, say, getting hit by a bus.