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Little Nothing


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Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Created: 08/09/17

Replies: 20

Posted Aug. 09, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
davinamw

Join Date: 10/15/10

Posts: 3443

Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?


Posted Aug. 19, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Maggie

Join Date: 01/01/16

Posts: 434

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Not so much unusual but I would wake up with aching legs when I was little. Mom would make me warm milk with vanilla. Not sure if it took away the aches but I would fall asleep.


Posted Aug. 19, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Marcia S

Join Date: 02/08/16

Posts: 505

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

My mom would have me drink a little vinegar to get rid of hiccups. Yes, it worked!


Posted Aug. 19, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
LindaB.

Join Date: 06/11/14

Posts: 80

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Baking soda or meat tenderizer for bee stings. Vinegar to treat sunburn. They did work!


Posted Aug. 19, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
kimk

Join Date: 10/16/10

Posts: 889

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

My mom advocated gargling with salt water when I had a sore throat, and yes, I do think it worked.

My grandfather had a home remedy for cough that he gave me & my sister one time when he babysat us: Honey & whiskey! Not sure how well it worked on the cough, but I suspect my sister & I slept very well. Needless to say, my mom revoked his sitting rights.


Posted Aug. 20, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
renem

Join Date: 12/01/16

Posts: 292

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

My grandmother used to put cooked onions and mustard on my mother's chest when she had a bad cold. Did it work, well my mother said it sure made you want to get well quickly!


Posted Aug. 20, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
judyg

Join Date: 04/20/11

Posts: 72

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

I agree with what KimK wrote and my most memorable cure was Vicks VaporRub--rubbed on the chest for colds, coughs, sore throats and always covered with a wash cloth pinned like a kerchief. Sure smelled good but I can't remember if it worked! I also remember some black tarry goop that was used to draw out things like boils. Anyone remember what that was called?


Posted Aug. 21, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
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skagitgrits

Join Date: 02/24/17

Posts: 64

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Oh my yes. I was raised in the country in the southeast and home remedies abounded. We were dosed every spring with a concoction that included kerosene, honey and baking soda to "cleanse" our system. If we caught a cold, we were treated with Mentholatum and given hot toddies made of whiskey and sugar. Vinegar for sunburns, spider webs for insect bites or small cuts were a few of the others. Did they work? Don't know but I do know that my siblings and I were the healthiest kids in our classrooms. Of course, we also ate wonderfully with all of the produce from the farm and played (i.e., exercised!) in the fresh air and sunshine all of the time. So, who knows if the actual remedies worked or it was just a matter of healthy living styles.


Posted Aug. 21, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
bobbie7

Join Date: 09/19/13

Posts: 65

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

My grandfather made a black drawing salve. Yes worked but after he died we lost the formula and probably a fortune. Of course the honey on the spoon with a squeeze of lemon for a sore throat - didn't really work but tasted good


Posted Aug. 21, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
bookbagbethy

Join Date: 03/01/17

Posts: 7

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Honey, whiskey and lemon for a sore throat!


Posted Aug. 21, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Gloria

Join Date: 03/11/15

Posts: 120

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Judyg and I could have been raised in the same household. That black goop is called Ichthammol ointment and it is still sold (check out Amazon). I was also coved in Vicks, but my mother would wrap a clean pillow case around my neck and use a big pin to keep it there.


Posted Aug. 22, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
melanieb

Join Date: 08/30/14

Posts: 265

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

My grandmother would give me a boiled egg and warm Seven Up cola when I had an upset stomach. It worked to soothe my stomach, not sure why.


Posted Aug. 22, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
sweeney

Join Date: 05/24/11

Posts: 185

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

My mother's cure for a sore throat was unsweetened canned pineapple juice, drunk right before bed. My husband's mother had a tube of black "drawing salve" for splinters...who knows where she got it!


Posted Aug. 22, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
barbm

Join Date: 02/04/16

Posts: 77

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

We had to drink apple cider vinegar with honey when we were coming down with a cold..we called it 'poison tea'. Today my kids swear by it! My dad would make my brothers put a cored lemon on a jammed finger. These were nothing like Pavla's!


Posted Aug. 23, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
JLPen77

Join Date: 02/05/16

Posts: 362

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Not unless you count ginger ale when we were sick. I believe ginger actually does stimulate the immune system, though I doubt it was superstition or science, but just habit, that led my mother to offer it as comfort, which it was.

But what stands out for me instead, in the superstition and ignorance department: one of my mother's older brothers (she was the youngest of 9 siblings) was a dwarf. This was over a hundred years ago, when he was born and growing up; he was an old man when I knew him. Uncle Bob was allowed to drop out of elementary school, presumably to avoid the social difficulties; he was coddled by his older siblings and their father (my grandmother died when my mom was 7). Eventually he did hold a job as a night watchman in a factory, and he was handy at home, made furniture, kept bees. But he was essentially isolated from society, and with a reputation for crankiness in the family, as I was growing up. He spent most of his time on his own little projects or watching TV, not interacting much even in the family.

When I was old enough to understand and ask questions, my mom always said she felt badly that had he been born in later decades, his condition could have been treated with hormones. I don't know if this is medically accurate, but I do believe that might have made a difference in some ways: she also felt that he shouldn't have been allowed to drop out of school. This was in rural upstate New York, circa 1900-1920. So my uncle's experience was contemporaneous with Pavla's (the physically realistic part of it, at least). I can certainly believe the ignorance of her parents wasn't only a plot device.


Posted Aug. 23, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
nancyh

Join Date: 06/25/13

Posts: 347

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Yes, my Mother got rid of a huge wart on my finger by putting iodine on it every day. I read that Maggie had aching legs when she was young, so did I. We did not find a remedy for it.


Posted Aug. 25, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
PiperUp

Join Date: 10/27/15

Posts: 146

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

My step mom is from the Phillipines...and she's convinced that vicks vaporub cures just about anything. So, as soon as one of us starts to feel ill, the first words out of her mouth are "You need to put vicks vaporub everywhere".


Posted Aug. 26, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
beac

Join Date: 08/23/11

Posts: 73

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

I don't think it is all that unusual, but my mother thought Epsom Salts cured everything.


Posted Aug. 28, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
andreab

Join Date: 07/29/14

Posts: 101

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

The only natural remedy I can recall is using aloe on burns. We thought it was weird because we used the plant but it is a very common remedy and works extremely well.


Posted Aug. 29, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
cynthiaa

Join Date: 04/14/11

Posts: 112

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Depending on the problems my parents go to remedy was either baking soda, aspirin or peroxide.


Posted Aug. 29, 2017 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
pennyp

Join Date: 03/22/12

Posts: 353

RE: Do you recall any unusual home remedies from your childhood? Did any of them work?

Baking soda, Epsom salts, vinegar, lemon juice and honey, salt water, Vicks are a few I can think of. I'd say most worked to some degree. I don't think they would have made me any taller??


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