Home remedies your mum, grandma believed

[justasking111]

My mother every weekend gave us kids senokots to move our bowels. Well they'd worked all week so why did her three offspring have to suffer gripes and frequent dashes to the loo?

Andrews liver salts or Beecham's powders during the week

Cornflour on nappy rash would be the same as using talcum powder, but cheaper.

For a cough..My nan would chop any root veg that she had to hand, place it in a bowl, sprinkle with sugar, cover with a lid and stick in the fridge. The next morning there would be the best veg based syrup at the bottom, few spoons of that and you’d feel much better. Other than that, home made chicken soup for any illness, breast milk for DD eye when she had an infection as a babe, and cold cabbage leaves for sore boobs.

Epsom salt for the outside
Bicarb for the inside

When my son got chickenpox when he was small I put calamine lotion in a clean spray bottle, put newspaper on the ground and sprayed him all over as easier and less painful for him as rubbing it in would have been awful. Did this every day few times and it worked a treat and easier for both of us.

Tara u must be Irish also as Sudocrem used for everything, did you ever read up on the name of Sudocrem as it was originally called Soothing Cream but due to the Dublin Accent everyone called it Sudocrem so they name changed it. It works wonders for all sorts.

Milk of Magnesia for a tummy upset - wtf even is in that stuff?
Hot flat lemonade for any illness.
Heinz tomato soup for a cold.

But my mother, grandmother and great grandmother's biggest contribution to infant medicine was (drumroll please) cooled boiled water off a spoon. Even (or perhaps that should be especially?) for exclusively breast fed babies. Colic, bad nappies, not napping, skin complaints, or just general crankiness, all could be fixed with cooled boiled water off a spoon.

God I miss them all so much.

Every time I had a sore stomach as a child my mother would make me eat spoonfuls of butter 🤢 5 or 6 massive spoonfuls. Fuck knows what she was trying to achieve.

This was over 35 years ago but;

A teaspoonful of molasses in a warm bottle of water for colic and/or constipation in a baby. It worked in both issues. (again, 35+ years ago so no idea if that is good advice these days or bad. It wasn't too many years before that that people were still being told to put honey on pacifiers to 'soothe the baby', so I'm always wary of mentioning the molasses thing)

Fletcher's Castoria for constipation in children.

Baking soda & water paste for insect stings

Put pee on a jellyfish sting (No longer advised)

Chicken soup and 7up cures just about every type of tummy or respiratory ailment

Tomato soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a glass of mild prevents colds due to 'wet feet' or 'getting a soaking'. It also cured childhood 'heartbreaks' like broken toys or hurt feelings. I no longer believe the first but the latter is still true, even for adults

To Noyoubekind it was for upset tummies, indigestion, all sorts, I remember my mum taking it out of the cupboard and giving it to me on a spoon. I miss my mum also, hard when lose parents/grandparents xx

For splinters take the skinny bit off the inside of a raw eggshell, put it on the splinter abs wrap it up. Works every time

@Didgedoolittle Indian Brandy! Yes! Never heard mention of it since growing up in the '70s.
DM always had some in.
Also:
Syrup of figs
Buttercup syrup
Milk of Magnesia ( in the blue glass bottle )
Pink germoline in the tin you could never open

Chamomile lotion ( adore the smell to this day )

Lucozade - only available from the chemist - was expensive, but making 'sunglasses' out of the wrapper while you watched telly on the couch under a blanket made it all worthwhile 😷

Did the spoon of hot water work... ????

Calamine lotion 🤣 Just drinking Chamomile as I type!

Yellow basilicon ointment for splinters and boils.
Zinc ointment for cuts and grazes. Or pink germolene from a tin.
Dr Collis-Brown for an upset stomach.
Vicks on your chest for a cough or cold.
Kaolin and morphine for the shits.
Syrup of figs if you couldn’t go.
Oatmeal in the bath for eczema.
Honey painted on the throat for a sore throat.

Chicken soup cured everything though.

Homemade nasal wash for allergies and colds (made with bicarb, salt and boiled cooled water) and sniffed up your nostrils from your hand.
Kaolin and morphine mixture for upset stomach.

Egg white on nappy rash, beechums powders and flat full fat coke for any and every illness, a bed made on the couch with your duvet, cabbage leaves in your bra to help with the aches if you're not breastfeeding.

Hot Ribena

Fisherman's friends

A hot toddy at an unreasonably young age, for any bad colds

Not health related but conkers in corners to keep spiders away. Doesn't work here!

@user1000000000009

Hot Ribena

Aaah hot bina - the ultimate remedy (after a hot toddy obviously).

Milk of magnesia dotted on your face for clear skin

@youvegottenminuteslynn

Pesto bismol
J Collis Browne

Pepto not pesto

My gran would “buy” a wart - I do remember this working but assume it was coincidence.

Lucozade was only for proper serious business. I had measles as a child and remember Lucozade featuring heavily as I lay in a darkened room.

As a student I had flu, and was on the phone to my mum crying because I felt so awful. She brought round lemons, honey, and brandy (from her own cupboard in a crystal decanter!) and said a hot toddy would at least knock me out so I could sleep. I still keep a dusty half bottle of brandy in the cupboard as an emergency measure.