Don't use neti pots with tap water or you risk fatal brain infection from amoeba

How many families and their children know there may be amoeba in any given area's tap water? There may be brain-eating amoeba in your city's tap water. Don't use netty pots (also spelled neti pots) unless you know the water is distilled, pure, and also has been boiled. Too many parasites such as amoeba from water can travel up your nose and into your brain and blood stream. See the December 17, 2011 Yahoo News Health article, "Neti Pot Deaths Linked to Brain-Eating Amoeba in Tap Water." See this video on nasal irrigation: Video "Medical Conditions & Treatments: How to Properly Use the neti pot.

Louisiana health regulators warned residents Tuesday about the dangers of using neti pots improperly. A neti pot, which looks like a genie's lamp, is commonly used to irrigate sinuses. The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals issued its warning following a second death this year caused by Naegleria fowleri, the so-called brain-eating amoeba.

A 51-year-old DeSoto Parish woman, according to the news article, "Neti Pot Deaths Linked to Brain-Eating Amoeba in Tap Water," died after using tap water in a neti pot to irrigate her sinuses and became infected by the deadly amoeba, which entered the body through her nose. In June, a 20-year-old St. Bernard Parish man died under the same circumstances. Tap water is too filthy to put up your nose for irrigation. Worse yet, a damp or wet netty pot breeds bacteria than can infect you.

Both victims are believed to have filled their neti pots with tap water instead of manufacturer-recommended distilled or sterilized water. When they used these pots to force the water up their noses and flush out their sinus cavities — a treatment for colds and hay fever — a deadly amoeba living in the tap water, called Naegleria fowleri, worked its way from their sinuses into their brains.

You can become infected with a parasitic organism in your brain that causes a neurological disease called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAME), which rapidly destroys neural tissue and typically kills some sufferers in a matter of days.

You also can get a similar infection from swimming in fresh water rivers or lakes or from a chlorinated swimming pool where the chlorine has become useless, especially from heat or sunlight. When a swimming pool is heated to less than 116.6 degrees, the bacteria or other parasites such as amoeba flow up your nose or are splashed up your nose, especially if your head submerges for an instant.

Don't use a netty pot with tap water to irrigate your sinuses or when you have a cold or other nasal problems such as rhinitis, or allergy issues. Do you know of the symptoms of amoeba in your body? The disease these parasites can cause is called amebic meningoencephalitis. It's a brain infection that leads to the destruction of brain tissue.

At first you get a headache. Then you begin to think you've caught bacterial meningitis. Suddenly, a fever develops, then nausea. You start to vomit and then get a stiff neck. Then there follows the confusion and loss of balance. You begin to hallucinate followed by seizures. The disease progresses very fast until you die within one to 12 days. Don't put water up your nose to prevent a cold, clear the sinuses, or other reasons.

Years ago doctors would tell moms to put salty water up their children's noses to stop a sore throat as the water runs down the back of the throat. No, don't do that. Don't flush your nose with water, salty or not. The same goes for your ears. You don't want a brain infection that quickly can kill you before you connect the tap water or swimming pool water to your nose.