How about your favorite Old Wives Tales related to health? - Page 15

My mom and nurses to this day tell me I need to wear a coat in winter because I'll get pneumonia.

Ridiculous. Not only have I never had pneumonia the only dangers of cold weather are frostbite, hypothermia and maybe a drop of the immuno response if the cold is stressing your body.

Pneumonia indeed...

A dr told my mother(mind you this was recently) when you had a sore throat to go to bed with a red scarf wrapped around your neck. Same dr. told me(also recently) in addition to atb for a strep throat, when I shower to take salt and rub it on my neck/throat area like an exfoliant.

Dr once told me that to fix my cold (viral) I was to stand in a cold shower, sleep naked under a fan with the windows open. I said that wont help, I'll get pneumonia! He said Ï can cure that!

*** More importantly he can bill for curing you of pneumonia. Hard to bill for advice on a viral cold he can't cure.

:chuckle How true! Very funny thread. Ok, so my mom swears I will catch pneumonia if I go outside with my hair slightly damp!!! Even though I am a nurse she just can't stop giving me medical advise. :chuckle She swears the best cure for a cold is chicken soup and 2 asprin, the cure for pneumonia if you get it is to take 2 asprin, stay in bed with as many blankets as possible and eat lots of chicken soup and drink orange juice. I know I am repeating some stuff but it really cracks me up. I especially love it when she says I'll ruin my eyes if I sit any closer tot he TV. ( yeah, I sit at the farthest end of the living room )

I have asthma, which is often exacerbated by an URTI. I go along to the Dr to get the certificate I need to stay off work for 2-3 days while I treat myself at home.
I couldn't get to my usual GP, 'cos he was booked out, so took one who was free. In addition to URTI & asthma, I had a sevrely swollen throat, probably step throat. My Dr's advice? Go home, put vicks vapo-rup in a bowl of hot water and inhale it! It would cure my throat and asthma in one go! Hmmmmmm

after reading pages and pages i just remembered one, if you read in dim light you'll go blind.

If you put warm pee in your ear, it will cure an ear infection.
Eat potato soup, mexican and drink castor oil to send you in to labor (the diarrhea may make you think you are anyway)
Tobacco on a bee sting (although i have actually tried that)
Ginseng Violet to cure thrush (my mom did that with me..turned everything purple)
Have the "soothe sayer" in the community breathe in your babies mouth to cure thrush, or any other illness...according to my mom, there is one in every town....
Oh there are many more..ill post more when i can think of them.
Oh wait---a shot of peppermint schnoppes

My mom used to carry around a box of cigarettes in her car because she is so terribly allergic to bee stings (before the advent of epi pens etc). It works.

And I have seen the gentian violet put in kids' mouths for strep throat. It works too. Looks funny, but works.

When I was in college, they has us gargle salt water for congestion- and it does work... for a while -