If you’ve followed this blog long, you know I’m a huge fan of the neti pot for daily allergy prevention. I use my neti pot every night! I also wrote a post about how to use the neti pot – it should never burn or sting or inhibit your natural breathing as the water passes through.

There is one aspect of neti pot usage that I knew I should have been be doing, but basically I just didn’t want to. Supposedly, only distilled or boiled water should be used in your neti pot to avoid introducing germs from the public water supply into your nasal passages.

But you see, I like my neti pot water warm. Ideally, body temperature. Which can only come from the tap. So I was ignoring what I knew I should be doing.

Then I started to see the stories about several deaths in Louisiana related to neti pot usage. I ignored that for a while thinking surely there were extenuating circumstances, but then an article about the neti pot deaths showed up in the Huffington Post. Well, I actually read that one.

Now I’m here to tell you: please boil your neti pot water or buy distilled water for use in your neti pot. 

I have started doing it – I keep the neti pot water in a carafe beside our sink. It’s room temperature, so it doesn’t feel as nice as the warm tap water did. I kind of hate it, actually. But I guess it has to be done.

This is your public service announcement: if I can do it, you can too!