Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

3121 readers

587 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Awa@lemmy.world

WhoRoger@lemmy.world

RoyalEngineering@lemmy.world

502

Texas woman dies from brain-eating amoeba after cleaning sinuses with tap water (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 2 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

202 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The woman contracted a fatal infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba and died eight days after developing symptoms.

A Texas woman died from an infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba days after she cleaned her sinuses using tap water, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case report.

The woman, an otherwise healthy 71-year-old, developed "severe neurologic symptoms," including fever, headache and an altered mental status, four days after she filled a nasal irrigation device with tap water from her RV's water system at a Texas campsite, the CDC report said.

She was treated for primary amebic meningoencephalitis — a brain infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, often referred to as the "brain-eating amoeba." Despite treatment, the woman experienced seizures and died from the infection eight days after she developed symptoms, the agency said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Well, they're not sure if the water came directly from the RV tank or the local water supply, so it certainly could have been tap water.

The potable water tank, the investigation found, was filled before the woman bought the RV three months ago and could have contained contaminated water. The investigation also concluded that the municipal water system, which was connected to the potable water system and bypassed the tank, could have caused the contamination.

The agency stressed the importance of using distilled, sterilized or boiled and cooled tap water when people perform nasal irrigation to reduce the risk of infection and illness.

Sounds like the general idea is also just don't use tap water directly out of the tap if you want to run water through your sinuses (which is where these infections come from). They aren't saying that tap water is unsafe to drink. I don't see this as fear mongering at all.