August 22, 2011
Perhaps you heard stories last week about a brain-eating amoeba and the use of Neti pots [http://www.wdsu.com/r/28921234/detail.html]. I heard a headline first about a young boy who died after being at a fishing camp and falling into water where he apparently had contact with the amoeba and it got into his body.
I heard about the Neti pot and exposure to the brain-eating amoeba from my husband who asked me to remind him to tell our daughter-in-law about it because she uses a Neti pot. And your sister, I added…
“What can you do about it?” I asked. My daughter-in-law suffers from allergies and sinus problems and the Neti pot provides relief. I didn’t want to just ‘scare’ her. After searching a few stories, I learned that you can use distilled water in the Neti pot to avoid any risk. [http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/health&id=8314285] Of course, I had to read to the very last line to glean that advice…
How about this: Neti pot users can avoid risk from amoeba by using distilled water. Open the story this way or use this in a headline to state how to respond to the risk. Repeat it near the end to reinforce the response. But avoid telling a tale that arouses fear without a suggestion about how to reduce the risk near at hand…
