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

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

#161

Post by Hello71 »

undersuit wrote: post #96
deepsun wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/7uu0…

> The hot water in your water tank may contain an excess of salt deposits

This is clearly impossible due to conservation of mass, unless you're claiming that the water heater is so hot that it causes nuclear reactions in the water.

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

#162

Post by reirob »

da_chicken wrote: post #58
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #33

I still don't quite understand how tap water in a neti-pot is significantly more dangerous than swimming in local lakes, swimming pool or the ocean. Certainly, you get water in your sinuses from that, right?

Yes, and people get from it from swimming [0] [1] [2]. That's typically how people get infected. It doesn't affect that many people because people typically don't intend to fill their nose while swimming. The issue is that a neti pot is that you're intentionally putting water deep into the sinus cavities. This amoeba is exactly why they tell you to only use sterilized water in a neti pot and to clean and sterilize yo…

Thanks for the references. Skimming through them it seems it's only the case for warm freshwater. Citing from your 1st reference:

> Naegleria fowleri infects people when water containing the ameba enters the body through the nose. This typically occurs when people go swimming or diving in warm freshwater places, like lakes and rivers.

Does it mean sea water is safe or at least safer?

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

#163

Post by deepGem »

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.

When I used neti pot long long ago, our instructor made it explicit that you should only use boiled and cooled lukewarm water mixed with salt, if you cannot find a readily available saline solution. She even gave the salt:water ratio which I've forgotten. The general consensus in the yoga community is to better be safe than sorry.

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

#164

Post by DanBC »

deepGem wrote: post #163
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.

When I used neti pot long long ago, our instructor made it explicit that you should only use boiled and cooled lukewarm water mixed with salt, if you cannot find a readily available saline solution. She even gave the salt:water ratio which I've forgotten. The general consensus in the yoga community is to better be safe than sorry.

> The general consensus in the yoga community is to better be safe than sorry

The safe thing would be to avoid netting pots, which have no known benefit and several known risks.

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

#165

Post by tachyonbeam »

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…

This person may have had a poor immune system. I mean, people do put plenty of unsterilized compounds up their noses regularly, without drying from brain-eating amoebas... Though I suppose brain-eating amoebas don't typically thrive in powdered chemicals, making the users more safe from this one potential risk.

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

#167

Post by coldtea »

taneq wrote: post #142
deepsun wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What nutrients does tap water have in it? Fluoride?

All kinds of minerals and such. In fact totally clean water, without them, is harmful and poisonous:

"Drinking absolutely pure water can kill you. All the water we normally drink – from taps, from bottles, from the garden hose – contains impurities which affect a property of water called tonicity. This is the ability of a solution to draw or repel water from ajacent solutions when separated by a membrane. Solutions that are hypertonic gain water, while hypotonic solutions lose water. Drinking water, which we usually think of as pure, really contains a whole mess of salts and sugars which make it slightly hypertonic. They also give water its taste. The cytoplasm in the cells of your body also have a tonicity. So, when they are exposed to hypertonic solutions, the cells themselves lose water and shrivel up. When they are in hypotonic solutions, they gain water, swelling up and bursting like a balloon. Absolutely pure water -with no impurities at all – is the most hypotonic solution. So, if you drink enough of it, your cells will start absorbing water. This disturbs the balance of electrolytes (electrically conductive ions) in your body. This is most seriously a problem in the brain, where water poisoning can lead to brain damage, coma and even death."

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

#168

Post by timr »

Duladian wrote: post #101
j1elo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you intrigued me. I might be one of those who don't know how to boil water in a way that will kill parasites Could you elaborate, please? (I would just bring it to boiling temperature and call it a day)

You usually want to leave the water boiling for a minimum of a minute or longer depending on boiling temperature of your location. Higher altitude (lower pressure) reduces the temperature required for water to boil which means you will want to boil the water longer. From my understanding, the reasoning behind this is to make sure the entire container of water is at temperature and not just hot spots in the fluid.

Also, some organisms are resistant to heat.

But really, the bigger issue (IMO) is that people don't know how to define "boiling". It's one of those things that you don't think is an issue until you're teaching people to cook, or work in a lab. There's surprising variation. One person's "barely steaming" is another's "full boil".

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

#169

Post by chrissam »

Tharkun wrote: post #87

I don't get the scare mongering in this discussion. People are saying to always boil the water, to not cook with hot tap water, etc. Don't these people bathe in hot tap water? Don't they drink cold tap water? Do they all live in areas with super unsafe tap water? Or is there a specific danger that comes from the water going up your nostrils? (Which can easily happen while bathing) What am I missing here?

> I don't get the scare mongering in this discussion. People are saying to always boil the water, to not cook with hot tap water, etc. Don't these people bathe in hot tap water? Don't they drink cold tap water? Do they all live in areas with super unsafe tap water?

My understanding is that you can generally drink water with this amoeba in it and be fine. This makes sense intuitively - our digestive systems evolved to handle "adversarial inputs".

> Or is there a specific danger that comes from the water going up your nostrils? (Which can easily happen while bathing)

It seems that this particular amoeba only enters the body through the nose, so yes. Also, a significant amount of water doesn't usually go up your nostrils when bathing or swimming unless something goes wrong. And if it does, you experience a painful sensation that will immediately compel you to clear your airway.

But, looking it up, it appears that swimming in amoeba-infected water can lead to infection. Still, I imagine a neti pot is a great way to increase chance of infection because you're pouring lots of water through your nasal cavity, which is not something that happens while bathing or swimming.

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

#170

Post by slededit »

MertsA wrote: post #118
deepsun wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is what is in your hot water tank right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=55s If your water heater is malfunctioning and not heating up all the way to 140 degrees but it's still heating up to e.g. 100 degrees then it's a breeding ground for listeria. The temperature difference changes the solubility of minerals and salts dissolved in it as well as changing how quickly everything even slightly vo…

Paradoxically if that is in the tank it means the water coming out must be purer than cold since the contaminats are left in the tank - on average.
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