Not even city tap water as it still contains pathogens. It seemed overly cautious, but...
A woman contracted a fatal brain-eating ameba after rinsing her sinuses.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/brain-eating-ameba-symptoms-treatment-b2763016.html
I always keep a gallon of distilled water for this exact purpose. Reverse osmosis bottled water while traveling.
There are more than flesh-eating amebas out there that can use the sinus portal. The transplant docs were more concerned about fungal infections. (Doc: We have lots of good antibiotics but that's not true for antifungals.) Sinus fungal infections are particularly deadly for diabetics --they love dark, damp, sugary tissue.
True for everyone.
When someone told me about this 20 years ago, I thought it was an urban legend. Then I looked into it and if I need a saline rinse, I boil the water then let it cool then do the rinse.
>> good antibiotics but that's not true for antifungals
A friend who was researching antifungals pointed this out also about 25 years ago. He pointed out that this is because we share a lot more biology with fungi.
The last common ancestor of fungi and humans was 1.1 billion years ago
Eukaryotes appeared about 2.5-2.7 bya so that's roughly when we split off from bacteria, though the LUCA (latest universal common ancestor) was over 3 bya.
So roughly speaking, we are 2.5 - 3X further from bacteria than from fungi.
From a practical point of view, this means that finding something that kills bacteria but doesn't kill humans is significantly easier.
One thing that often surprises people is that mushrooms are closer to people than they are to plants as well. The difference is not as striking, but humans and mushrooms belong to the Opisthokonta group, which split from plants 1.6 bya.
So we are closer to fungus than to bacteria, but we are also closer to fungus than to plants and, the one that surprises people, fungus is closer to us than it is to plants.
Effectively if you reduce the tree to just the categories in question, fungi are our siblings, plants are our cousins and bacteria are our third cousins twice removed.
So that's why antibiotics and herbicides are relatively easier to develop than fungicides.
>mushrooms
Oh, I forgot. The clinic nixed fresh mushrooms, too.
>we share a lot more biology with fungi
This explains so much about human beings. hhh
Brad, I was thinking the same thing when I wrote that