As you may have determined by now, I am a southern chick. My people were a po' people and so we relied heavily on home remedies and/or what you might call "odd" medications.

I remember when I'd get sick my Maw Maw would be running for the Paragoric or the "Ammonia". She'd fix me up a little ammonia and coke and the very smell of it would send me running for the bathroom! I have no idea to this day what "ammonia" was, but I sure do know it was foul.

My Paw Paw's mom was the woman in town that you called when someone was birthing a baby or someone had passed away. Apparently she knew what to do. When I was a teenager, he taught me a verse to say if I found someone bleeding. He told me when he was a kid, he used the verse on a hog they had slaughtered and it wouldn't bleed so they had to throw it out.

Please tell me ya'll have some stories about weird doctoring. I'd hate to think I was the only one that grew up this way!

Well, Sher, what can I say. I'm a hillbilly from WV so we had a lot of weird doctorin' goin' on.

Paragoric - aaaaaaaaaackkk
Hot toddies - yum

Methiolade or Mechuricome (have no idea how to spell it, but the stuff was worse than the injury)

Black Salve - for splinters

Butter for burns (I know this because at age 7, I pulled a boiling pot of soup off the stove right into my crotch.) Grandma, trying to 'cure' me, and make me laugh at the same time, said that butter 'down there' would not only make the burn quit burning, but would cause womanly hair to grow!

Swallow Vicks Salve - yuck

Rub Vicks on the chest with a warm towel tucked between your chest and your jammies.

Mineral Oil for constipation

Corn Huskers lotion for callouses

Bag Balm for every skin ailment

Greens (vile stuff cooked to look like green slime) for iron deficiencies

Oh man, now I'm going to have nightmares.

Dian,

I remember some of those same things as well! Poor us.

Well, my Granny was the doctor in our family. My mother used to tell me what a cying little dickens I was when I was an infant, and she would call Granny to boil up some "onion tea" good grief, apparently they opiumized me! LOL Maybe that explains alot about me now! anyhow, she said it worked and I looked like a little angel while I was sleepin. Granny's other cure sent all of us kids runnin....she thought that a good enema could cure anything! Lord, it's a wonder we all lived.

My mothers mother was a midwife in Italy before she came here to the USA. She had an entire book of old folk remedies but the ones I remember best and know they work because I did it to my own boys or neighborhood kids when necessary, with their parents watching are....For a nasty carbuckle/boil, you boil some milk, then rip off a piece of white bread about 2x2 inches, you sprinkle white table sugar on the bread then a couple spoons of the hot milk and place that wet sugar side down on the boil and it'll pop in seconds and begin to drain. Or heat the top, opening of a pop bottle and place the opening over the boil and it'll also make it pop. My Gran always put Vicks or some mentholated rub on the bottom of our feet and then dry thick socks. That will break up chest congestion faster than anything else I know....I could be here all day but these are enough for now....

Do any of you have a remedy for hives?

I've never had them before, but have the teeniest bit now. The doctor put me on Clarinex for ten days to clear them up. So far, so good, but I'd love a home remedy.

This is probably no help but my grandma had a remedy. She had remedies for about everything.

When we had hives or chiggers or mosquito bites or anything else that itched, she bathed us in a tea she made from poke berries. (Do you all have poke there?) The water was purple and we hated it. We looked weird until our next bath, but we didn't itch. And we sure didn't complain if we ever itched again either.

I had poison ivy a while back and absolutely nothing including the Dr. could help. I finally got some Gold Bond powder and it saved my life. Great stuff. It might help.
smile

Dian, you brought back so many memories. Black salve, I remember that and the smell.
My grandmother was a midwife and so a lot of homemade remedies were used growing up. The last one was for colds. Apple cider vinegar in a cup of hot water. I think they used a tablespoon of honey to sweeten it. It didn't take long to get over a cold when you drank this stuff.
Maggie

Dots, I've taken to getting hives while stressed and find that an aveeno bath, or just soaked oatmeal helps. Boy and do I know that vicks and a bandaid is my mom's cure for absolutely everthing. Vicks for a cold, vicks for a boil, vicks for a splinter! I wish those of you who still remember both the cures and the chants would write them up and share them with us. I'm a huge believer in "old remedies".

Kathryn,
The Vicks thing reminds me of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and how the father used Windex for everything! LOL!