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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

#141

Post by User23 »

copperx wrote: post #111
8bitsrule wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must have been something else involved. Should we not swim in pools, rivers or lakes, or submerge ourselves in hot tubs? Netis are part of Ayurvedic medicine in India since long before people dreamed of personal immortality. Remember when people worked outside all summer without worrying about excess UV? Maybe we're overthinking this stuff, we Chicken Little emulators.

Spending a large part of the day under direct sunlight (e.g., working in a farm), is known to paradoxically reduce the risk of skin cancer; whereas occasional exposure (e.g., working at a desk job and then sunbathing in Cancun) greatly increases the risk. Perhaps we're not overthinking it. Maybe there are complex processes that we don't yet understand.

This phenomenon has been well known for almost all of history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK349158/

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

#142

Post by taneq »

deepsun wrote: post #95
harshreality wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What nutrients does tap water have in it? Fluoride?

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

#143

Post by solatic »

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…

> But they don't inform the user of the potential hazard of using otherwise safe-to-consume tap water.

Devil's advocate: if they did, odds are consumers would consider it as if the company is peddling conspiracy theories rather than actual science. Or "maybe it's true for tap water where the pots are made, but I trust my tap water and I know it's safe". If such explanations are more likely to harm a company's perception than to protect consumers, then what value do they have?

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

#144

Post by taneq »

8bitsrule wrote: post #104
legohead wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

109 cases in a little over 40 years.. yeah, this is more of a freak occurrence. also, the article says they never tested the water, so this idea of the neti pot is just a guess to begin with.

There must have been something else involved. Should we not swim in pools, rivers or lakes, or submerge ourselves in hot tubs? Netis are part of Ayurvedic medicine in India since long before people dreamed of personal immortality. Remember when people worked outside all summer without worrying about excess UV? Maybe we're overthinking this stuff, we Chicken Little emulators.

You absolutely should not get river or lake water in your sinuses if you can help it. The lake I used to swim in as a kid would regularly get warm enough to have amoeba in it that could cause amoebic meningitis and we were always told to keep our heads above water.

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

#146

Post by sjg007 »

_0w8t wrote: post #127
GhostVII wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that pretty dependent on where you live? If you are in a newer house I doubt it would be an issue, since you have a personal water heater that gets cycled through pretty regularly.

If the water heater uses copper pipes, the copper still gets into the water. And even with plastic pipes the trace amount of plastic may still end in the water and nobody knows if drinking such water for, say, 40 years is safe. So do not use hot water for cooking/drinking.

Pex is thermo stable.

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

#147

Post by rv-de »

sjg007 wrote: post #145

This happens every ten years.

And millions of people every day suck in tap water through their noses to clean them - and still this infection happens virtually never.

But it seems that even the rational and sophisticated HN crowd isn't immune to overresponding towards news that is basically just gross on a visual level while completely irrelevant from a statistical perspective.

Having said that I once while tripping immersed my head in water and got some of it quite far up my head through the nose. That water was in a warm, lenitic and rather dirty pond - the optimal breeding conditions for this terrible little creature. I was worried for at least a week about having my brain eaten :D

But that was in middle Germany and it seems these amoebas don't really like it here so much.

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

#148

Post by rv-de »

angry_octet wrote: post #59

I'm stunned at how many people are commenting that they will continue using untreated water. You can end up having your brain eaten and die, I can't think of a PSA any more convincing.

It's more likely to die from an infected burn caused by an accident while handling boiling water to prepare your water for rinsing - I suppose.

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

#149

Post by rv-de »

aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #5

Rough.

I think this is one of the most on spot and reasonable comments in this thread. The rest is writing about how worried they are or convincing others how unlikely it is.

Some folks here down vote faster than they can think it seems.

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

#150

Post by jessaustin »

smiley1437 wrote: post #113
dplgk wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the salt kill amoebas?

Using a normal saline solution of 0.9% NaCl is much more comfortable, doesn't sting the sinus membranes at all. I wouldn't count on it to kill anything

If the amoebas thrive inside the body, they certainly won't be harmed by a saline solution.
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