People also sometimes contract these amoebas while swimming in lakes and ponds - it's believed a bit of water that contains the pathogen gets up the nose, opening the door to infection.Īlthough death by "brain-eating amoeba" makes for a sensational headline, the fact remains that the chances of it happening to you are similar to winning a Mega Millions lottery draw - i.e. Some people have contracted a similar infection linked to incorrect neti pot use caused by Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba that tends to inhabit warm water and is more likely to be found in tropical or semi-tropical climates. Indeed, this isn't the first time neti pots have made a splash in the health media. Although there have been other reported cases of amoebic infections, in that particular article it's hard to make a definitive link," she says. "The report shows they didn't really test the tap water of the patient who suffered from the infection, so it's sort of speculation. Eunice Park, a double board-certified ENT and facial plastic surgeon who specializes in nasal and sinus conditions at ProHEALTH Care, a New York-based health care company. "If you dive deep into that article, they couldn't definitively link the amoeba infection to the neti pot," says Dr. A biopsy of the lesion was performed and the patient sent home, but her symptoms worsened.Īs scary as the situation sounds, the first point to realize is that infection from the B. A brain CT scan showed a lesion on the right side of the brain, which was determined not to be evidence of metastatic breast cancer. Over the course of the next year, multiple biopsies and prescription ointments could not positively identify or clear up the rash, and she eventually had a seizure that landed her in the hospital.
The patient's primary care physician prescribed sinus irrigation using a neti pot, and it's believed that the patient used tap water that had been run through a filter, but was not sterilized, to perform regular nasal irrigation.Īfter using the neti pot for about a month, she developed a rash on her nose that was thought to be rosacea, a common skin condition that causes a red rash on the face. (A neti pot is a low-tech device that uses gravity and a saline solution to irrigate the sinuses and nose to remove mucus and reduce congestion.)Īs reported in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, the 69-year-old woman had a "distant history of breast cancer," and a year prior to the diagnosis of the brain infection, had developed a chronic sinus infection.
Last month, the media reported extensively on a case study involving a Seattle woman who died of a so-called "brain-eating amoeba" she'd contracted from using a neti pot.
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