Old time medecine?

[XingMing]

Am I being unreasonable to suggest that people investigate old time frontier medicine and treatments first for everyday ailments before asking the doctor?

From personal experience 40 years ago, in the USA, I had a blocked ear canal. My then MIL laid my head on a table on a towel, and poured in hydrogen peroxide and told me to stick it out for five minutes. After which my ear was much improved: I could hear again. In rural NZ, an old nurse suggested a salt water gargle for a sore throat for my seven year old. For coughs and colds and low level ailments, we should be trying such treatments before the GP. Do you think I'm bonkers or should we go straight to high tech expensive treatments?

@@Rudolf, salt water gargles are the safest option of all for children. It tastes horrid, so they spit it out, and it contains salt and sterile water. It's a rinse, not to be swallowed.

I have been known to smack a ganglion with a book...

I try to treat most things, within reason, the natural or 'old' way. That's where medicine originated and I also believe there is a cure for everything in nature, but we may or may not have found it all yet.

I would recommend listening to the podcast Sawbones to find out more about why we should not do this

Well some things are good eg and honey and lemon but yechnological innovations in medicine are bloody marvelous.
My friend was told to do a gallbladder cleanse instead of removal for her very diseased gallbladder...she sensibly opted for the latter.

Hydrogen peroxide mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with rubbing alcohol works great for Swimmers ear. Our Family doctor in US recommended it as it was the same as the one you could buy in the pharmacy, only cost pennies instead of nearly $10.
Peroxide is fine just don't get it on healthy tissue. I used it as a nurse in US for wounds prescribed treatment from the doctor.
I use hot drinks like tea and honey, camomile, etc and salt water gargle for coughs and sore throats, works well. Hot packs and cold packs on sore muscles instead of pain killers works too.

I don't know about using old time methods to cure ailments. However I definitely do think people should stop rushing off to the GP/ A&E for the slightest little ache or pain! I have friends who rush themselves and especially their children straight off to the doctor at the slightest temperature or cough and cold!

I’m not sure what the argument is here? Most people I know would try basic home remedies like salt water, lemon and honey, hot compress etc for minor ailments before rushing to a doctor. In fact, the only people I know who jump straight to the doctor are American relatives who live in the US and who’ll announce they’re off to the doc to ‘get some antibiotics’ at the first sign of a sore throat and find it barbaric that we can’t do that here.

Sure some simple things work (salt water gargle, and hot wooden spoon for stye on eye etc) but you're trusting the general public not to do obviously stupid things. And too much of that could easily backfire and result in injury/delay in proper medical care if people aren't clued up or 'don't want to bother someone'. Too few people know enough basic biology or medical care to be able to separate truth from old crap or new tik tok rubbish.
For example idiots trying to drink bleach or whatever because Trump publicly mused an 'internal cleanse' could maybe cure covid 🤦‍♀️

Nobody should be going to their GP or A&E for a simple cough or cold anyway. They’ll resolve on their own, without honey and lemon, in someone with a normal immune system.

If you have a chesty cold, a glass of port before you go to bed works wonders. No idea why.

my dads doctor used to prescribe him benelyn codeine, which was the best thing ever.

Mint (tea)for stomach upsets, ginger for for coughs/chesty colds. Salt gargles for sore throat, salt wash to clean minor wounds.
When I was a child the school nurse used witch hazel for everything!
I don't think I'd feel safe putting anything in my ears though.

Gargle with sage tea, ideally brewed with sage leaves. It instantly soothes a sore throat and heals it.

One of the advantages of modern life is that we can all ask a pharmacist for advice. We're not crossing the prairie, days from anyone with any medical knowledge.

Hydrogen peroxide comes in different strengths. 3-5% might help clean out your ears but higher strengths could scar and burn. Not a great idea.

Bicarb and copious water to flush out cystitis/UTIs. Bicarb also good for bee stings once stinger removed. Vinegar for wasp stings. Mint tea for heartburn, reflux, indigestion.

I use plants a lot. I've taken my Aloe Vera on holiday with me

A few years back I found an ancient tiny bottle of smelling salts in the cupboard that were my grans. Are they just in case you faint or something?

I was always given a teaspoon of honey every morning by my gran aswell.

Yep. At uni one of the lecturers told a student that kelp was good for thyroid problems.

Kelp, well it contains a lot of iodine so could help an overactive thyroid, but the student's daughter had an underactive thyroid.

I know a few old cures and I might apply a bread poultice to a whitlow overnight, but if it still there in the morning I'm off to the pharmacy.

I'm not about to start brewing up tincture of willow bark when aspirin is available.

I use honey, hot water and lemon and find it effective. My mother used to pour warm oil into my brothers ear when we were children as he suffered badly with earache, often in the middle of night.

I had a warm amaretto sour over the weekend for the first time. Tasted just like the lemon, hot water and honey concoction, it was delicious. Might have that next time. There must be something medicinal about amaretto surely?

Rub a potato on a wart and then bury said potato, wart will disappear overnight
Let a stray dog lick any wounds, they will also heal and be infection free overnight.
If your baby has a chest infection, leave them in pram next to men tarmacing road, a proven cure.
Mastitis, heat up an empty milk bottle with hot water, empty, then place on nipple, will suck all the infection out.
Head lice or scabies, cover in petrol based fluids, again a fail safe cure.

These were just some of Nans cures, which fortunately the subsequent generations decided against and went to their gps. I expect in Nans day with babies, there was no nhs, so home cures were used. Some made sense, but too risky, Lol.

I wouldn’t consider putting drops of hydrogen peroxide in your ear or using a salt water gargle as “old time” or homeopathic medicine. It’s literally the first thing a pharmacist would tell you to do if suffering from these very minor problems and is basic first aid treatment. It’s like saying that you cleaned a cut and put a plaster on it 🤷‍♀️

There’s a great book and tv series James Wong grow your own drugs for exactly this issue

I think most people would just treat stuff at home wouldn't they? Especially colds and coughs. It's not exactly easy to get a gp appointment and they are rightly reluctant to prescribe stuff unnecessarily.

Ive always found a bowl of hot steaming water the best relief for coughs and colds - head over with a towel covering me and inhale all the steam. When my son gets infected nails I soak them in salty water as hot as he can cope with with and watch the pus curling out!

Always treated mild eye infections with cool boiled salty water too.

Next step for me would be pharmacy if that stuff didn't work

We used to have a Wrights Coal Tar vaporiser that my mum would put on at night, basically an oil burner that used coal tar instead of water and oils. Was banned as carcinogenic but we knew we were ill when we were little and it came out and good God it worked!