Distilled Water Only while traveling?

I would strongly recommend AGAINST using tap water. Please see link for story on two fatal cases of brain-eating amoeba that can be found in tap water and other bodies of water. As you can see, the amoeba was in the tap water which these people used for their Neti pots.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/f ... d=15170230

Drpjfitz wrote:I would strongly recommend AGAINST using tap water. Please see link for story on two fatal cases of brain-eating amoeba that can be found in tap water and other bodies of water. As you can see, the amoeba was in the tap water which these people used for their Neti pots.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/f ... d=15170230

Yeah, neti pot always use distilled water or boil tap water for a bit. The latter is another solution for you to make tap water more like distilled and safer and cleaner.

Drpjfitz wrote:I would strongly recommend AGAINST using tap water. Please see link for story on two fatal cases of brain-eating amoeba that can be found in tap water and other bodies of water. As you can see, the amoeba was in the tap water which these people used for their Neti pots.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/f ... d=15170230

this is completely irrelevant, however, in that one is not snorting the water directly into one's nose with a cpap humidifier.

one is breathing the water vapor that comes off heated water... which is where distilled water comes from.

A lot of grocery stores have distilled water too, so that might be another avenue for a cab stop. Heck, I've gotten distilled water at 7-11, though that's about the most expensive place you can get it locally. But hey, it's another option.

Though to be honest, bottled water is what I normally go to when I'm traveling besides "mom and dad's" or "grandmas" because the bottles are smaller and easier to deal with. At mom and dad's we keep distilled water for me around, and at my grandma's, well, she's a cpap user also so she lets me bum a bit of hers the first night and the next morning I'll go out and buy another gallon as a thank you...small town, limited hours for the stores and we usually don't arrive until late.

But bottled water, one of the other perks of it in addition to being like 1-2 night's worth is it's generally in a hotel vending machine. For a few nights it won't hurt the machine. Does smell a little different to me though, but that is probably more that "hotels don't smell like home" thing than anything.

a 99 cent gallon of distilled water lasts me about a week... it's all I use when at home

While traveling, I'll use whatever water is available; bottled, tap, etc..

I have a spare H5i tank that I only use for traveling. It gets cleaned when I get home and is put into storage until needed again

Drpjfitz wrote:I would strongly recommend AGAINST using tap water. Please see link for story on two fatal cases of brain-eating amoeba that can be found in tap water and other bodies of water. As you can see, the amoeba was in the tap water which these people used for their Neti pots.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/f ... d=15170230

The disease is amoeba Naegleria fowleri. Nasty stuff. It pretty much only happens when you get contaminated water in liquid form up your nose.

In a CPAP machine, in theory the organism can't get from the water in the tank into the hose. As the water evaporates, the germs are left behind.

In much of the world, CPAPers use tap water with no apparent problems.

In the past 50 years or so, there have been only 2 or 3 cases of people in the US catching N. fowleri from tap water (not from CPAP). 2 of these were doing neti, where they actually pour water into the nose. They were also from unchlorinated tap water. There have been around 130 cases total in 50 years the US, mostly from water sports or swimming in lakes or streams.

N. fowerli from tap water is just not a big risk.