Old wives tales

Specialties Private Duty

Published

I was taking with a parent who insists that the things she was taught about healthcare are correct. All of this parents "knowledge" comes from old wives tales. The things I've seen/heard are just plain scary.

So what are things you've seen and heard? Have you been able to educate those parents at all? Do you just go with it and document to cover yourself? Do you try to teach them right? I want this to be a fun thread to share stories and have a laugh. But I also want it to share ways to handle this type of parent.

So I just heard that corn starch draws out toxins from a brown recluse bite and heals it. Apparently the hospitals and doctors have been treating it all wrong all of this time! Haha! Of course, I just nodded and smiled and let that one go.

I had a parent who would insist that you could stop a tonic seizure by shaking the child out of it.

She also insisted that the child might swallow her tongue during a seizure.

I tried to educate her,but would you believe she had other nurses that agreed with her beliefs,esp the first one?

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This didn't happen to me, but a friend working in ER in the early 80s who had a patient with main c/o "leaves growing out of my Virginia" (not a typo, that's what the patient called it).

This was an older lady with a prolapsed uterus-apparently she was told inserting a potato would take care of it. Kind of an organic pessary. Then it sprouted...

I read that in a book but for the life of me I can't remember the name.

Googled it to see if I could find it but found this instead:

snopes.com: Potato Pessary

An elderly female comes to the Emergency Department complaining: "I got the green vines in my virginny."

The patient reports a two-week history of a vine growing from her lady parts. On physical examination it is discovered that she does indeed have a vine growing out of her lady parts, about six inches in length.

A pelvic exam reveals a mass which is easily removed from the lady partsl vault, vine still attached. Upon extraction, the patient reports that her uterus had been falling out and that she "put a potato in there to hold it up" and subsequently forgot about it.

The potato.giftale of a woman who employs a potato as a pessary (a device worn in the lady parts to support the uterus) has also been circulating on the Internet since at least the early 1990s. The patient always refers to her condition in some nonplussed, malapropic fashion (e.g., "I got a tree in the bedina" or "I got the green vines in my virginny") to establish the image of a simple old rural woman prone to employing folk remedies such as a potato pessary
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Specializes in Hospice.

So, either my friend was "Nurse Zero" for this scenario, which has since grown a life of its own, or she pulled a good one on us way back in the 80s. Well, she wasn't a reader, so I doubt she found it in a book anywhere, but it could have been passed around the ER, kind of like the "duck pin in an inappropriate place" legend lol.

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.
Hops are a galactogogue (something that increases milk production). Unfortunately, alcohol inhibits letdown, though.

It's true. Guinness has low alcohol content and lots of hops/barley. I also had over active letdown so that part was a welcome side effect

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I was also told that if the kid has a rash to let them sit in the sun for a while. They said it will even out the rash on the skin so it goes away. I'm thinking it just makes them sunburned and the redness hides the rash a little. Some of that "advice" can cause a lot of harm.

They know it all and fail to realize how little they really know. And they don't try to better themselves which makes it worse.

They may be thinking of a diaper rash. It's just simply airing it out, removing the constant moisture and irritation of a diaper. It's what I did for my kids. Not necessarily leaving them out in the sun, but outside in the fresh air, sans diaper, in the shade. It worked.

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Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

HA! I work with a nurse NOW that will do that if a resident is coughing in the dining room of the facility where I do PRN.

I have a parent who will lift the patient's arms up when patient is choking. The clinical supervisor has tried to explain this does nothing, but the parent refuses to listen.
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Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

I worked in dentistry for many years before going back to nursing school. About once a year we'd see someone for a toothache, with a curious ulcerated area on the tissue near the tooth. Because don't you know that putting an aspirin on a tooth with cure a toothache? And since the second A in ASA is ACID, it has a detrimental effect of soft oral tissues!! I guess it "worked" because the pain from the open wound on your mucosa made you forget about the pain in your tooth!

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.
I worked in dentistry for many years before going back to nursing school. About once a year we'd see someone for a toothache, with a curious ulcerated area on the tissue near the tooth. Because don't you know that putting an aspirin on a tooth with cure a toothache? And since the second A in ASA is ACID, it has a detrimental effect of soft oral tissues!! I guess it "worked" because the pain from the open wound on your mucosa made you forget about the pain in your tooth!

Wow ::no:: I haven't heard of that. I have heard (and done this) of emptying a capsule of Benadryl and rubbing that on gums will numb them. And it does work!

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Specializes in Pediatric Private Duty; Camp Nursing.

I had one parent who put onions on the windowsill. I think it was to remove germs from the room or something. I can't remember exactly. It didn't hurt anyone, so I didn't bother wasting my energy explaining that one.

I also worked in a home w onions "to remove germs". It was a Mennonite home. They replaced them once a week or so and they really got rank. The room reeked so bad and I was working 12 hour shifts, so I gathered up the onions and tied them up in a plastic bag when the family slept, and put them back in the morning.

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Specializes in Peds(PICU, NICU float), PDN, ICU.
I also worked in a home w onions "to remove germs". It was a Mennonite home. They replaced them once a week or so and they really got rank. The room reeked so bad and I was working 12 hour shifts, so I gathered up the onions and tied them up in a plastic bag when the family slept, and put them back in the morning.

I've done stuff like that before. When the room becomes intolerable, things temporarily get moved from the room. I love air freshener. But there is one that smells like cheap mens Cologne. I've unplugged/bagged those before, just for my shift.

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