What you say sounds totally reasonable, and after reading what you just wrote on another thread about drug metabolism, I am swollen with respect for you.

I know my doctor wants me to use distilled water, but that's not sterile either. What you're saying sounds totally plausable, so, I'm just going to think about it a bit.

I do know that irrigating when my secretions thicken has kept me from requiring antibiotics for my sinuses for most of two years now. Before that I was on many antibiotics, including intravenous. The drainage opening of the ethmoids is scarred shut, and my non-surgical sinus guy--the one I go to to stay OUT of the hands of surgeons---is thinking it will need to be opened again. My sinuses are on the edge of tolerability, and growing out two weird organisms. But hydrocortisone (just in replacement dose) for 3 days with irrigating religiously seemed to get it under control.

I just don't know what to say here. I've bought the conventional wisdom, and it's worked. I do see what you call the potential danger. I just don't know how to measure the two.