I seems to have been quite the topic a few years back with many of the same issues raised. I am sure many old timers are rolling their eyes. In the small amount of searching that I have done, it would seem that the conditions is quite rare. I am sure that tens of thousands of people use Vaseline around their nose (if not in their nose) on a daily basis. I am not seeing anything in those searches that says "I was diagnosed with lipid pneumonia. The only possible exposure to lipids that I have had was the daily use of a thin film of Vaseline in my nose to alleviate dryness."According to the searches I just did.......Yes.
Den
The Mayo Clinic says not to use anything that is not water based in and around your nose. That would exclude the use of Lanolin, which is a Sterol Ester.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/petroleum-jel ... q-20057784
Lipid Pneumonia is rare, here is a case outlined by NIH
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2219803/
Note that the person was ingesting significant quantities of mineral oil, suffered from GERD, and had asthma. There are a LOT of ways to get lipids into your lungs. Cooking with fats and oils could do it, look at the inside of a range hood sometime.
I am having a hard time searching for actual cases of lipid pneumonia actually attributed to nasal use of Vaseline, the searches results are flooded with warnings.
Vaseline is essentially a soft paraffin. It does degrade silicone over time. I am also having some issues finding information on the compatibility of Lanolin or other sterol esters on silicone. My hunch is that they would slowly degrade the silicone, but I have no direct references. Silicone is degraded by all sorts of things.
Anyway, I know I am rehashing old topics. The use of Vaseline is one of those things that I put into the category of "there could be some danger, but it is probably not what is going to kill me." Your mileage may vary.
