A cautionary tale for Boing Boing readers who like to irrigate their nasal passages with warm salt water during the cold season: don't use water right out of the tap. (via @heathermg)

  • kongjie

    My favorite line from that item, in describing a neti pot: “…and looks like a genie’s lamp.” Oh, okay, that explains it perfectly. 

  • http://mychemicaljourney.blogspot.com The Chemist

    Wait, I end up with water up my nose all the time from bathing or washing my face. I’m sure a lot of people do. Granted a neti pot is a lot more water coming into more contact with your nasal cavity walls, but damn. 

    • http://twitter.com/martchand Martain Chandler

      My thoughts exactly. (Long time N-potter, here.)

    • Jerril

      Generally you have to be half-drowned to get the sort of “snorting water up in to the weirdest crevices of my head” effect you get with nasal irrigation. Or at least I need to. I don’t get water much past the cartilage-y bit under normal living…

      • http://mychemicaljourney.blogspot.com The Chemist

        But you don’t have to get that far to get a fine mist up there. In theory that’s enough.

  • OldBrownSquirrel

    To me, the real news is that tap water in Louisiana contains amoebas.  Next time I’m there, I’ll make even more of a point of sticking with beer.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DRM5JTOXVN2GINSGSNSUMW7TDM MG

      That’s going to burn your nose though. :D

      • yeahyeahwhtever

        No, does NOT burn when you use the correct amount of salt.

        • http://laroquodexperiment.com/hypo/0.1/ Paul Laroquod

          Well if you are going to put salt in the beer before snorting it, at least add some tequila.

    • Jonathan Badger

      Basically no tap water is free of microbes. The issue is which ones and in what quantities.

      • Seraphim_72

        [Citation needed]  – Sorry Bub, this ain’t the third world.

        • jtmon
        • Jonathan Badger

          Every water system in the US has a staff of microbiologists whose job is to monitor the microbial counts. If it’s too high (or if serious pathogens are detected) they will put out a warning telling people to boil or avoid using the water, but it isn’t ever zero even on good days. It’s also a pretty standard experiment in beginning microbiology courses to plate tap water and see what grows up.

  • greybird

    the article blames the neti pot, but shouldn’t we be blaming the water? where did they get this water? a lake? or is Louisiana using inadequate chlorination?

    if snorting water is strongly associated with brain amoebas, wouldn’t we see babies dropping dead nationwide??

    sad story: ridiculous conclusion.

  • http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/ Marja Erwin

    And I thought I had trouble with neti pots, just from water painfully sloshing around inside my ears for weeks afterwards. (Apparently it’s a common variation in the position of the eustachian tubes.) Okay, this is worse.

    • Jerril

      … my doctor said I was imagining things. Interesting. Only happened a few times for me, but hmmmmmm.

    • yeahyeahwhtever

      How is it possible to get water in your ears from properly using a neti pot?

      • twency

        The answer is in the comment to which you replied.

  • http://www.eff.org/ deaduncledave

    HaHAA! I lack a brain to begin with, THE ADVANTAGE IS MINE!

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/alex.wifiguy Wifiguy

    This is why you should sterilize your sinuses after using a neti pot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm7YpxgOnA

  • http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer

    This right here is the stuff of my nightmares, and the reason I stopped using my neti pot. (Having to boil the water, and then let it cool down, pushes the whole exercise over into too-much-of-a-pain-in-the-ass territory for me.) 

    • Jerril

      I’m a horrible packaging-producing consumer whore and use the commercial spray cans of saline solution instead of a neti pot. This is because I have a bad case of a very specific fear of tainted water up my nose.

      Not joking. Really specialized phobia. Probably due to lifelong recurring sinusitis, but yeah.

      • John Bloom

        Turns out it’s not a phobia; it’s a survival trait.

    • Soni Pitts

      Or, yanno, just buy jugs of distilled water.

  • Jerril

    GAH “The organism begins to consume cells of the brain piecemeal by means of a unique sucking apparatus extended from its cell surface.”

    Thanks Wikipedia. Gah!

  • julianasbananas

    but this is really a thermal protist that thrives in tropical climates and around thermal vents. I don’t think this will happen in the northeast.

  • Les Elkins

    Eek- feel bad for poor lady.

    The allergist who started me on a lifetime of neti pot use told me to use distilled water, because there is enough bacteria in tap water to occasionally cause problems.

    When traveling I’ve generally used bottled water, but now I’m thinkin’ I’ll make the extra effort to either bring distilled water with me or get some at my destination….

  • xian

    This is not something I want to read one week after my first encounter with a neti pot – using tap water :O

  • t3kna2007

    > Brain-eating amoeba kills via neti pot

    SOPA, explained.

  • Guest

    man oh man…98% mortality rate??? That’s a bio-weapon on par with anthrax

    cultivate some of these nasty little guys and put them in a special someone’s contact lens solution, nasal spray, eye drops, etc… anything that goes into the skull, basically.

    Now pour it all down the drain and soak your petri dishes in bleach.

    There’s no way to prove it didn’t come from the tap water.

  • http://meterandmath.wordpress.com Meter Andmath

    Huh, never heard of a neti pot. Weird.

    Anyway, Naegleria fowleri is found only in warmer water of a certain temperature  range, EG, some of the hot springs i frequent hear in southern Nevada (as well as others worldwide), or sufficiently sun warmed fresh waters. It can of course survive for a finite time in cooler water if it is flushed from the spring into a river or something. You generally do not risk exposure in cool water.So, it would seem that the water source for these people in Louisiana has to be either A, quite warm, or B, at least in close proximity to warmer waters that support populations of the amoebas. Also, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Naegleria_fowleri#Incidents_and_outbreaks Only 33 people from 1998 – 2007 in the US… so, Meh.Just don’t get water up your nose, it doesn’t belong there anyway…

  • chgoliz

    The last line of the linked article contains some interesting info from Louisiana State Epidemiologist, Dr. Raoult Ratard:

    “Tap water is safe for drinking, but not for irrigating your nose.”

    Say what?

    • flosofl

      Your alimentary canal can handle all sorts of nasties that the mucus membranes in your nasal canal cannot.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Your alimentary canal can handle all sorts of nasties that the mucus membranes in your nasal canal cannot.

        Maybe we can head this off by doing fecal transplants to the nose.

  • Shawn RIchardson

    Hearing about this amoeba needing warm water to survive, I’m thinking the problem most likely resides in the hot water tank. Sort of makes me glad I have a tankless.

  • TacoChuck

    I generally sterilize an empty 2 liter bottle and then boil up 2 liters of water with my sea salt and pinch of baking soda in it. That makes sure there is no contamination from the water or the sea salt or the baking soda. Then I have ready to go, sterile neti pot juice for a couple of weeks.

  • Antinous / Moderator

    Much of the evil in your tap water is in the aerator.  Crud collects in there.  We had a little Legionella issue at the hospital and most of the aerators on the wards turned out to be colonized with it.  You can at least take off the aerator and run the water full blast for a few minutes to decrease the concentration of cooties.

  • Damien

    Relax, you can treat those brain-eating amoeba by squirting a homoeopathic solution of 
    brain-eating amoeba up your nose with one of those neti pots. If you want to make it more effective then you can, errm, dilute it with more tap-water…

  • kjh

    I used to use boiled water.  I think the take home message here is don’t stick plain tapwater up your nose if you live in the US, (or China, India, third world countries, etc.)

  • Ambiguity

    The scenario detailed seems so unlikely (especially where I live, in a colder place and in a town that gets its water from a pretty cool river) the risk/benefit ratio seems so low that I’m not going to worry about this.

    But what do I know? I just neti-ed my nose ten minutes ago (like I have most mornings over the last seven years or so), so perhaps I have no brain left.

    I think Maggie should follow this post with a basic statistics chaser!

  • Ito Kagehisa

    Well I suppose I could use the water from the stream, then.  But it’s actually a bit more alive than the well water that comes out of my tap. 

    Meh, either way, I’m cool with the local microbes, and don’t wish to become a bubble boy.   ^_^

  • Helloidal

    My netipot is a squeeze bottle. I can clean my entire brain with it. Distilled water might be a good idea. From Google images it is clear there is no dignified way to photograph someone irrigating their sinus.

  • vtboinger

    Well, this is the ZOMG story of the week.  Maybe year.  I’ve been using an “infant ear syringe” when I have a head cold, with salted tap water.  My question is can these brain-eating vampire zombie undead werewolf amoebas survive salty water?  And, if so, do we need the kinda salinity found in mom’s chicken soup, or the dead sea?

  • Bornagainscholar

    I think you are all paranoid news readers. I am calling BS! Didn’t happen and if it did maybe they should have used the packet of goodies that you are suppose to put in the neti pot. I think that would have taken care of the creepy little amoeba. Or maybe they have a hard time following direction, or for that matter reading in LA. Just kidding.