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

@Mossstitch I totally agree . Lucozade has been ruined and no longer works miracles. I believe it can no longer be given to people with diabetes. We were given warm Ben Shaws yellow lemonade for colds . When I was a barmaid I regularly made hot toddies for customers with colds. My dad took something called Compo for colds and used Sloans linament on painful joints .

Germolene cream
Gold ring rub on eye stye

My grandad used to have a few weird cures

Lucozade was given for everything

He had bad knees so he’d put his feet in a bowl of hot water and rub sunlight soap into them-took me years to work out that sunlight soap was for hand washing clothes!

He’d take a can of pop (not fussy on what)
Boil it until it lost its fizz,cool it and if you could drink it then you could have the next day off school
It was rank

Tunes or lockets for colds-always the cherry tunes and the yellow lockets-none of the others worked but he’d buy the honey tunes at a push

My mother used to give us fisherman’s friends for sore throats

We often joke that we grew up strong-what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

A raw potato in the bed to cure cramp! (I suffered cramp a lot as a child) Obviously a placebo...but it helped

Bicarb as a paste for sunburn... it works (fuck knows why no one put sun cream on me as a child but I remember the soothing feel as Gran spread the paste on me!)

TCP for everything else. Sore throat? Gargle it. Limb hanging off?
Dab it on the stump!

Dh is a TCP fan... to the point that when DS1 (adult) friend who is a tree surgeon, cut himself at work... he came to our house to be TCP-d and bandaged! He recalled how DH TCP-d our son (and any other random kid) when they used to scrape themselves skating !

My grandmother told me that your fasting spit would cure boils, cuts, pimples and abcesses and it does often work. Apparently your spit contains a component from your immune system. Used on boils it persuades them to burst within a few hours without needing to press or squeeze or artificially burst the boil.

My grandma had a range of different things she swore by

Germoline for grazes
TCP for cuts
Callomine lotion for rashes
Milk of magnesia for stomach upsets
Syrup of figs for constipation
Bread poultice for splinters
Potters vegetable cough mixture
And a teaspoon of cod liver oil and a haliborange vitamin C pill every day

She did not hold with new fangled stuff like Calpol and having been brought up in the pre NHS era she thought you should never ever trouble a Dr unless you were at deaths door (but if you did get a Dr you should 100% expect a house call)

She also had a mercury thermometer and her rule was pretty much that if you didn't have a temperature ok that then you weren't ill
I remember once I put it in her cup of tea when her back was turned to try to get out of a maths test at school. It worked as well!

Love this thread really nostalgic and some tips to try!

My DM taught me these which work!

Halved onion left in bedroom overnight when have cough or cold (must be thrown out in morning)
Lysine for cold sores
Germolene for spots
Dead Sea salt bath to draw out viruses
Gold ring on stye
Soles of feet (particularly around maxes of toes) massaged with vicks to relieve a cough or cold
Gargling Panafon for a sore throat 🤢
Dr Collis Browne for diahorrea
Syrup of figs for constipation
Heinz tomato soup when in any sort of recovery

My mil used to rub vinegar on DH when he was small if he was ill. I don’t know why or what effect it was supposed to have!

A GM of mine used to say you couldn’t beat hot milk with melted lamb fat in it 🤮 , for any ‘chesty’ complaint. Thank God I was never expected to try it, though!

Vinegar mixed with sugar for coughs. Bloody worked alright, we didn’t dare cough again lest they give us another dose.

If I had a cold then camphorated oil was warmed up and rubbed onto my back and chest before I went to bed. I hated the sticky feeling it left on me.

My dad bought my sister’s wart off her hand and she did indeed lose it and he grew one! My DD recently had mosaic verruca and a massive wart, so I made DP buy them from her. And yes, her wart and verruca disappeared and he now has a massive wart on the back of his ankle.

Whiskey on toothache works as well.

Oh and yes, the Savlon came out for EVERYTHING when I was growing up!

What is 'buying' warts??
@Wishihadanalgorithm

Hot lemonade, extra lemon juice in it and a spoonful of honey, I’ve now turned into my grandmother as I gave it to DS last night for his cough 😂

A bread poultice to draw out pus. My mum suggested it to me the other day for an infected toe. I have resisted thus far.

Indian brandee has been discontinued fascinating history to it. You can make your own

None of these but hot lemon and honey for a cold.

Drying hair or yourself if you got wet indoors or outdoors.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

My grandma had a range of different things she swore by

Germoline for grazes
TCP for cuts
Callomine lotion for rashes
Milk of magnesia for stomach upsets
Syrup of figs for constipation
Bread poultice for splinters
Potters vegetable cough mixture
And a teaspoon of cod liver oil and a haliborange vitamin C pill every day

She did not hold with new fangled stuff like Calpol and having been brought up in the pre NHS era she thought you should never ever trouble a Dr unless you were at deaths door (but if you did get a Dr you should 100% expect a house call)

She also had a mercury thermometer and her rule was pretty much that if you didn't have a temperature ok that then you weren't ill
I remember once I put it in her cup of tea when her back was turned to try to get out of a maths test at school. It worked as well!

Most of the medicine type ones like germolene, TCP, milk of magnesia etc were pretty standard chemists remedies for people in olden days, my mum used similar. Calamine lotion we got most use out when both of us had chicken pox.

My nana took 2 aspirin every morning in case she had a headache in the afternoon. Then died of cancer of the stomach.
In Boarding School (80's) they made us gargle TCP for a sore throat (ugh).
My mother used to make me Goldilocks Milk if I wasn't well. It had brandy and brown sugar in it.

@BOOTS52

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

No

Although trying to dribble spoonfuls of water into a tiny baby's mouth is hilarious, so at least it cheers you up!

Ipecacuana wine. When we were kids, if you felt queasy, Mum would say “Better out than in” and give us a spoonful. It made you vomit almost immediately, and tasted foul. We called it “ecky pecky wine”!

Flat 7up for upset stomachs.
Onion Juice for colds

If you pray over the broken foot, Jesus will heal it 🙄

Hot lemonade for colds and sore throat was my mum's go too. Vicks on the soles of our feet for coughs. With socks on. In bed. And brandy for tummy ache.

And my mum told me how my gran used to get a blob of Vicks vapour rub, roll it in sugar and give it to my mum for tonsillitis! Which I'm pretty certain can't have been good for her!! But then my gran use to give me an aspirin in milk for headache as a small child, and that's DEFINITELY not good!

Oh and my gran gave us syrup of violet or syrup of squills for pretty much every ailment going!

I remember my gran putting butter on a burn on my hand once.

Olive oil warmed up, soak a cotton wool ball and shove it in your ear to help ear ache.

My Mum always gave us lucozade if we we had sickness or diarrhoea- back when it was in a glass bottle! It was the only time we were allowed it. Even now I crave lucozade if I'm poorly!