Shocking: Texas woman, 71, dies after nasal rinse with tap water

Texas: In a shocking incident, a 71 year old woman died after doing a nasal rinse with tap water. According to the reports, the ‘a brain eating amoeba,’ known as ‘Naegleria fowleri’ claimed the Texas woman’s life after she caught a deadly infection from using tap water to rinse her nose.

It has been reported that the woman fell ill just days after using tap water from an RV campground to rinse her nose. Over the course of four days, she developed a fever that was accompanied by confusion and within eight days she died tragically despite the medical attention she had been receiving.  

The medical experts said that the brain infection she contracted, which is nearly always fatal, is primarily known as amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). The Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba that thrives in warm freshwater and is known to enter the body primarily through the nose and travel to the brain. Although it rarely causes infections, when it does, the infection is usually deadly.

Notably, the exercise of nasal rinse is an act that started to be performed about a thousand years ago, it is the act of using saltwater also known as saline solution to clear the passage of the nose so the air can move more smoothly from the nose to the lungs. 

It is commonly done by people who face challenges in breathing especially through clogged noses, as the water used usually passes through one nose to the other mostifying the nose so that mucus can be cleared out, debris and allergens flushed out, which offers relief to any nose allergies, cold, infections and flu. It is usually done with squeeze bottles, rubber nasal bulbs, and eti pots which help to get the water from one nose to the other which also  well removes the  allergens such as dust, pollen and other debris.

It's known to clear out  light mucus by  thinning out stubborn, thick mucus that can be stuck on the nose so that it can be expelled while blowing your nose or coughing. The act itself rarely has any side effects when it is done properly using the right water and clean devices. 

The CDC have advised all those that do nose rinse or plan on doing it in the future to take precaution over the type of water that they use when performing the rinse. They stressed on the importance of using only distilled, sterile, or properly boiled water for nasal rinses so one can take precaution of the bacteria that are usually swimming in warm freshwater especially from the tap. Stressing that nasal exposure can be lethal as people cannot get infected through drinking water or person-to-person contact but only through contaminated water used to rinse the nose.