I tried this once when I was a teenager. As far as I remember, I took the precautions of sterilized water, getting the right salt, etc.
Guess I didn’t know how to properly use it, since I gave myself an awful sinus infection and was bedridden for next two weeks. To this day it’s the worst I’ve ever felt. Never touching a neti pot since then :/
The infection may have happened despite the neti pot, not because of it