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submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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.

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[-] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago

Blows my mind, all the people that use anything besides freshly filtered boiled and/or filtered water for this.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Well it shouldn't. We're taking a lot of knowledge for granted when normally, we aren't all that bright in the first place.

A lot of the theory learned isn't met in practice, so it's difficult to understand or recognize it.

I mean, come on, how often does 'brain-eating amoeba' even come up as a subject in day to day life? Hard to pay attention to stuff that doesn't frequent your area of activities.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I see stories about it at least once a year, and its the sort of thing that sticks out, even though I rarely flush my sinuses.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Well, I don't. It's the first time in 7 to 10 years since I last heard of it. It's not common at all for me and doesn't even cross my mind because I lacked reoccurring contact with this kind of information to have it a priority.

This difference in knowledge is also a difference in awareness , so it's not that baffling that most people don't share the same kinds of wariness.

We don't know the same things so we pay attention to things in separate ways.

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this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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