home remedies you would NEVER try

[ktwlpn]

Doing some research today and found a good one for lady partsl yeast infections-Insert a fresh clove of garlic wrapped in cheese cloth....I don't think so!

A former neighbor would wipe her baby boy's faces with their wet diaper to prevent acne when they got older.They never did have a zit but then again she and her husband both had very nice complexions.

Have you heard/seen any wacky home remedies to share?

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

When our son got what I thought was conjunctivitis as a small baby, my husband told me to squirt a few drops of breastmilk into his eye a few times a day to clear it up. It was a funny sight, me trying to aim my boob at the eye of an infant who didn't really appreciate having his eye held open. (Son didn't have conjunctivitis, he had a clogged tear duct, so the breastmilk thing didn't work. But I've since heard other people swear by this as well.)

We do keep a head of cabbage in our unit fridge at the hospital for our moms with engorged breasts -it works beautifully.

I used to work at a community health center and we saw many kids with thrush, oral HSV, or strep come in with purple mouths. Moms had painted them with gentian violet. I did some looking/reading and found that gentian violet has antibiotic properties and is fairly common in Latin America....then the lightbulb clicked on that that's one of the ingredients in triple dye, which is what they use to paint babies' umbilical cords in some hospitals.

[anon456, BSN, RN]

I never understood the advice to take castor oil to induce labor. Yeah it probably works if people are still trying it, but do you really want to be having diarrhea while pushing out a baby??

(There's that much better natural remedy for inducing labor that involves both partners-- that one sounds much more pleasant . . . )

I have used crushed cabbage leaves for breast engorgement. It also works for swollen ankles, a swollen perineum after childbirth (esp. if there are stitches) and post oral surgery. My dentist recommends that patients roll up a small bit of leaf and gently bite on it, and it reduces swelling and healing time.

I have heard people swear by the breastmilk thing for pink eye as well.

[anon456, BSN, RN]

Not sure if this one has been mentioned yet. An old ad for Listerine as a douche!!

http://blog.beautyfix.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/listerine.jpg

[Katie5]

Lemon juice in the eye for pink eye or sty. I'd never do this one!!!

Compared to some others that I have read, this is pretty tame.

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

Here's a link to thread on a very extreme home remedy that I would have to be scraping the bottom of the barrel before trying:

http://allnurses-central.com/world-news-current/man-finds-extreme-520517.html

[CrazierThanYou]

Not sure if this one has been mentioned yet. An old ad for Listerine as a douche!!

http://blog.beautyfix.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/listerine.jpg

I recently read that in the 40's and 50's there was a product marketed as a douche. It was really just Clorox and water.

[Butterfly0328]

Garlic for toothache. This really works!! For a bad toothache bite on a piece fo garlic. Kills the pain almost immediately. Only drawback it the garlic will somtimes cause burning feeling on the gums, but if the toothache is bad enough it is worth it. Of course your breath won't be the most pleasent, but in the middle of the night or on the weekend when getting into a dentist is impossible this is an excellent way to stop the pain until you can get in.

Sprite for cough... also really works. When my kids were little I ALWAYS had sprite in the house. Something about the carbonation. But only sprite out of the can worked???

[JeanettePNP, MSN, RN, NP]

Did anyone mention the pigeon cure for hepatitis? Put pigeons on the sick person's abdomen, the pigeon draws out the disease and dies while the person recovers. The birds do die, but probably because of the way they're held.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

Castor oil

Many people of my grandparents' generation swore by castor oil as a cure for just about anything.

When I lived in the hood, many older Black women used cod liver oil to cure anything and everything.

[PedsAtHeart, LPN]

If you dye your hair and it happens to get on your skin and stains it, you can take cigarette ashes and add a drop of water, mix together and use it and it will take the hair dye right off. The lady that does my hair told me about this after we did a black hair dye and my forehead and ears were covered, but it works!!

I have also done the toothpaste on pimples trick. Worked for me. It helps dry them out so that they will heal and go away.

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

Knew an EN once who's young son got head lice.

Well her mum (who was really old at that time) said to use parrafin oil (which works). But this EN just dumped it on her son's head & left it! She didn't dilute it at all in water. Well his poor head got so burned, he had to go into hospital 2 a burns unit. She said she felt so guilty, but there are warnings on the bottles saying it is caustic. I asked her re this and she said she didn't even read the bottle! You'd think as a nurse she would check. I wonder about some people at times...

If u think that's freaky, read the health section of Yahoo! answers & see the things people use on there! It is so unbelievable how stupid people can be.

I always tell others not to use home remedies, & check with a doctor first. I've heard of too many incidents where people have got hurt or even died. A doctor who'd done a rotation in the ED told me once a patient was trying to 'cleanse' his liver and colon and drank something caustic a friend told him to try (I can't remember what it was now), but his bowel etc went ischaemic and he died. Eeeech, scary stuff!

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

A good friend of mine swears by Johnson's Hair Food for sore nipples r/t breastfeeding.