Brain-Eating Amoebas
Morbid Curiosity 2
This article contains information regarding medical illness and details that may be disturbing to some readers. Please read with caution.
I’ve never been a fan of water. Not for any particular reason, I just never took to it. My primary school swimming lessons were a struggle between my instructor dunking my head underwater and me spluttering and struggling to stay afloat. I can float on my back now and do a basic doggy paddle, but if I were ever lost at sea, I’d be screwed, so naturally, I’ve avoided contact with water aside from the occasional toe-dip in the holiday swimming pool. But I was curious — was there anything deadly lurking in the water, something that we couldn’t see with the naked eye.
And because the world is full of miracles, the answer was yes!
Naegleria fowleri, more commonly known as the brain-eating amoeba, is a free-living single-celled organism that can be found in fresh, untreated water, typically within warmer/tropical climates, though cases have been reported in various locations. This tiny terror can go up through your nose whilst you’re cooling off at the local lake in the summer, and once it’s in there, it starts to search for something to feed on. And where does your nose lead to? That’s right — this charming little fellow makes a meal of your brain tissue, helping itself without any regard for you or your most important organ. So very rude.
Once the amoeba has made it’s way to the brain, there is a very short timer between its first nibble and a very painful death. Symptoms can include vomiting, comas, seizures and an altered mental state, but usually by the time symptoms begin to develop it can be too late. It’s considered a fatal infection, with an overwhelming 97% of cases ending in death. There isn’t yet a clear cure for the condition, as it only takes about a week to turn from symptomatic to critical, meaning there isn’t a lot medical professionals can do to study the development of the infection. However, there have been occurrences of people having developed antibodies against the amoeba, meaning there may have been some undocumented, less severe cases where the body has successfully fought the infection before symptoms developed.
This is because the body's white blood cells will swarm the infected area. When your white blood cells defend your body against foreign cells they cause inflammation, which explains why you can feel achy with a cold, or why broken bones cause swelling. Unfortunately, this inflammation doesn’t always go well when it’s directed at the brain. Our brain is protected quite tightly by our skull, which doesn’t fare well when the tissue begins to swell. This is most likely the reason brain-eating amoebae are so deadly. If the infection can be fought off before any significant brain damage occurs then you’re more likely to survive.
Whilst the amoeba is usually found within fresh, untreated water such as ponds or rivers, there was a case in Louisiana in 2013 where a 4-year-old boy fell prey to the amoeba whilst using his garden water hose to power a water slide. The amoeba had infected the local water tanks as they used chloramine, a different type of solution to purify the water in the area. The poor boy was taken as a casualty as water from the slide had gone up his nose — the amoeba is not deadly if it is ingested in any other way. After the incident, the water tanks were flushed out accordingly and treated properly.
What would be my advice? Well, it’s simple enough for a non-swimmer such as myself to suggest never swimming ever again, but that’s not realistic advice for the majority of the population. The next time you’re putting your face in water, remember that natural does not always mean safe — nature can be downright disgusting, and your local river can be home to some rather grotesque bacteria. Plug your nose the next time you go diving, and keep those devilish amoeba’s away from your brain.
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