My wording was a bit off. The nerves in your nasal passageways apparently bypass the bbb altogether.

Netis are part of Ayurvedic medicine in India since long before people dreamed of personal immortality.

Remember when people worked outside all summer without worrying about excess UV? Maybe we're overthinking this stuff, we Chicken Little emulators.

Perhaps we're not overthinking it. Maybe there are complex processes that we don't yet understand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK349158/

Yes. And in that time period, average life expectancy was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years. The risk of death from neti pot use was hardly significant compared to all the other health risks anyone living at the time would be exposed to.

The same goes for skin cancer. It's a meaningful risk to us today because we can live long enough for the cumulative damage from solar radiation to be a meaningful cause of mortality.

One example of ignorance is knee-jerk, gainsaying, scientism about alternatives to Western medicine. My use of Neti was recommended by a well-trained physician, and it was very beneficial. There was indeed practical wisdom in the world before the rise of materialist rationalism.

Oh yeah... and western medicine couldn't save the lady's ass. I'm sure the bill was VERY healthy though.

My understanding is that you can generally drink water with this amoeba in it and be fine. This makes sense intuitively - our digestive systems evolved to handle "adversarial inputs".

> Or is there a specific danger that comes from the water going up your nostrils? (Which can easily happen while bathing)

It seems that this particular amoeba only enters the body through the nose, so yes. Also, a significant amount of water doesn't usually go up your nostrils when bathing or swimming unless something goes wrong. And if it does, you experience a painful sensation that will immediately compel you to clear your airway.

But, looking it up, it appears that swimming in amoeba-infected water can lead to infection. Still, I imagine a neti pot is a great way to increase chance of infection because you're pouring lots of water through your nasal cavity, which is not something that happens while bathing or swimming.

But this particular organism can hurt you if it goes into your nostrils. It is found in many city water supplies, and I suppose the reason is there's something about typical water treatment that doesn't kill it. In both cities I have lived in it was there. My wife use's neti pots and knew about this. The first time I heard you couldn't use tap water for your nose, I thought it must be wrong, because "of course tap water is safe and treated". I have also swam in fresh water pools, usually a natural hot springs, that has a warning about this same organism. If you swim and water gets in your nose in those pools there is a chance it could get into your brain and kill you.