With flu and general illness season upon us, there's little that's more irritating than walking around with your sinuses filled to the brim. I loathe congestion with the fury of a thousand suns. I evolved to breathe through my nose-holes and I believe I have the right to take advantage of that ability whenever I please, thanks. But as annoying as congestion may be, it seems some of the methods developed to help deal with it actually result in even more nefarious side effects. Like, say, death.

 

The neti pot is a little plastic vessel designed to let you pour salt water through your nose. A saline solution goes in one nostril and comes out the other, washing out all the grossness inside that's keeping you from breathing properly. In theory, it seems like pretty harmless stuff. Makes sense to use water to flush out a clogged-up head, right? Well, not if that water is full of things that want to eat your brains out of your head.

 

Two residents of Louisiana recently died from neti pot use. Unbeknownst to them, a deadly amoeba was hiding in their tap water. When they used tap water, instead of bottled or distilled, to make their sinus-washing saline solution, they inadvertently unleashed the microscopic killers into their sinuses. The organisms made their way into their victims' brains and proceded to eat them away until they died. 

 

The little killers officially go by primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, and they're really, really bad to put in your body. In fact, most people who get those amoebas in their brains die within days without ever knowing it. The likelihood of you actually having them in your tap water at home is pretty low, say epidemiologists, but still--the thought of having your brains eaten alive by invisible creatures is scary enough to turn me off of pouring tap water into my nose anytime soon. 

 

If you're a neti pot user who wants to keep on with your sinus-flushing, don't worry--it's not something you need to avoid completely. If you're worried about amoebic infestation, just boil the water you're going to use and let it cool before pouring it into your nose-pot. That ought to kill any lurking amoebas dead in their tracks long before they can ever make it into your skull. Or pick up some distilled water or pre-mixed saline solution that's more or less guaranteed to be amoeba-free.