Your Grandmother knew a great deal about curing common ailments. Here are some which have stood the test of time..
ACNE is a problem of teenagers and is mainly due to hormonal imbalance . Local application of any of these may be beneficial
# Lemon juice.
# Cucumber --- leaves or grated pieces.
# Clove based face mask or a paste of Fenugreek ( Methi ) leaves applied overnight and washed off next morning.
# Mix 1 teaspoon of turmeric (Haldi ) powder to 1 teaspoon of mint or corriander juice. Apply and wash off before retiring to bed.
# Orange peel pounded well with water and applied to affected areas is often helpful.
# Drink at least a litre of water to impart a healthy glow to the skin.
ASTHMA is most commonly a result of allergy and can be distressing at times. Besides the medication, the following measures may provide quick relief.
#Give a solution of onion juice ¼ cup, honey 1 tablespoon and black pepper 1/8 tablespoon.
#Make a decoction of licorice and ginger, give ½ tablespoon in 1 cup of water.
#Express the juice from garlic. Mix 10 - 15 drops in warm water and give internally.
BURNS - Apply (or soak in) white vinegar to the burn until the feeling of heat goes away.
WOUNDS - One has to act fast using whatever means are available. Avoid touching any wound with an unsterlized covering or your unscrubbed hands.
#The first step is to make the victim lie down to prevent fainting. Next proceed to stop bleeding by placing a gauge or cleanest cloth available over the wound and press it firmly with the palm of your hand. Change the dressing if it is saturated with blood Keep the dressing firmly in place but not so tight that you can not feel the pulse below or beyond the wound.
#If the wound is on the head, neck, arm or leg and there is no suspected fracture, elevate it to a level above the heart to help stop
the bleeding.
#Application of ice bag ( ice cubes in a thick plastic bag ) directly over the bleeding area is also helpful
#If the bleeding cannot be stopped by these measures, try shutting off the circulation in the main supply artery by pressing it firmly with your fingers against the underlying bone. The fingers should be kept straight and not curved.
#One remedy I have used with much success is liquid echinacea. Buy a 1-2 oz. bottle from your local health food store. Apply to any cut and be prepared for dramatic improvement within 24-48 hours.
DANDRUFF - Apply lime juice to scalp before every head bath.
GAS, abdominal pain - Take a cupful of water with a pinch of baking soda and 2 TSF of lemon juice, stir and give internally.
HEAT STROKE is a medical emergency requiring immediate and aggressive treatment. Heat exhaustion is less severe but if not managed properly, it may proceed to heat stroke. The basic essence of management lies in cooling the body with whatever means available.
# Make the victim lie on his back with feet raised.
#The clothes should be loosened or removed.
#If available, place him in an air conditioned room
#Start cooling the body -- Wrap his head in cold, wet towels and his body in cold wet sheet. If he is outdoors, use a garden hose pipe pouring running water over him. Alternately, pour buckets of cold water over the victim. If the body temperature is around 105*F place the victim into a tub of cold water or apply ice packs. In case the victim is unconscious or feeling nauseated, do not give any oral liquid. For a conscious person give sips of cool diluted salt water (1 teaspoonful salt in 250 ml water). Give half a glass every 15 minutes. Orange juice is often helpful.
HICCUPS - These usually clear up spontaneously without treatment, but if it persists, you may try the following:
#Give the child a spoon of granulated sugar to be swallowed dry.
#Using a spoon, tickle the back of the child's throat causing the child to gag.
#Make the child drink a glass of water as slowly as possible. Some add a pinch of baking soda for a better effect. In older child if possible, make him hold his breath as long as he can or pull out the tongue as far as possible to trigger the gag reflex.
INSOMNIA - A Hot Bath. A hot soak about 90 minutes before bedtime will raise your core body temperature. The subsequent cool-down seems to encourage deeper sleep, researchers suggest.
FOR OVER INDULGENCE- Eat too much? Pineapple- This tropical fruit is loaded with an enzyme that aids protein digestion.
NAUSEA - Ginger. It helped Danish women in a morning sickness study, and it may also prevent motion sickness. Try some ginger tea (hot water with diced ginger) about 30 minutes before your trip.
COLDS/FLU - Chicken Soup. Yes, Mom, you were right -- studies at Miami's Mount Sinai Medical Center show hot chicken soup really does have a beneficial decongestant effect. Better yet place a few drops of Hydrogen Peroxide (3% solution) in each ear. Repeat in 6-8 hours and it is likely the cold/flu symptoms will be gone the next day.
HANGOVERS - Water. Drink plenty of water while you party, then more before bedtime to prevent dehydration from alcohol.
ITCHY SKIN - Oatmeal or Baking Soda. Soaking in tepid water with a cup or two of oatmeal can soothe a myriad of irritations, including insect bites and sunburn, says UCLA Medical Center dermatologist Dr. Lenore Kakita. Also try a baking soda paste directly on the skin.
URINARY INFECTION - Cranberry Juice. It's even more effective than water for flushing bacteria out of the system. If you're prone to such infections, try a 10-ounce glass each day (dilute with water if you find it too acidic).
YEAST INFECTION - Yogurt. Eating a cup a day can regulate your bacterial environment. Just make sure it says "live acidophilus cultures" on the label.
WARTS - hey come unbidden and without warning. They are ugly and sometimes hard to eradicate. Even the medical name is nasty: verrucae vulgaris. Warts are caused by any of 60 strains of the human papillomavirus. Children are especially susceptible, but anyone can develop this common infection. The hands and feet are prime targets. Dermatologists might prescribe acid plasters to gradually eat away at the rough tissue, burn them off with electrical cautery devices, freeze
them with liquid nitrogen or remove them with a laser. Even with such high-tech treatment, many warts return time after time. One reader pleaded: "I am going nuts with warts on my hands. I have had them removed by doctors and they return. The wart 'paints' work, but the warts come back. Do you know of any old timey cures or anything I could try?"
That is why home remedies are so appealing to people. No one understands why the mind is so powerful in ridding the body of this unwanted virus. For centuries techniques like "buying" the warts with a shiny new penny have been amazingly effective. Even doctors have utilized "magical spells" to relieve their younger patients of this plague.
Over the years we have collected a lot of wart remedies. Here are some of our favorites.
#Take a banana peel and cut a round piece the size of the wart. Put the inner side next to the wart and tape it on with surgical tape. Change this every day with a fresh piece of banana peel. It may take a week or so to see results."
#A nurse sent us the following remedy - "Peel the skin off a potato as thin as possible. Take a small piece of potato skin and rub the POTATO side on the wart twice a day. In one or two weeks the wart will turn black and fall off. There is apparently a chemical in the potato near the skin which kills the wart. I have used this for warts large and small on several people, and it never fails."
#Another person offers a doctor-recommended remedy: "Clear nail polish works for warts. My dermatologist told me to try it. I gave up after a short time because it was tedious to apply it every day. But when our dog developed a huge wart, I put a coat of polish on daily and within a week the thing flaked off."
The nail polish approach has been around for a while. Another reader relates: "When I was a freshman in college my biology professor said that warts could be removed by 'smothering' them with frequent applications of nail polish or heavy cold cream.
"I had my first wart then and really hated it. Having no nail polish at the time, I used cold cream, applying it every time I was in my dorm room. It took about two weeks for the wart to disappear."
Vinegar is another popular home remedy for warts. "I was plagued by a wart on my index finger. Because of the location, a physician said there was nothing to be done that wouldn't cause disfigurement. I soaked a piece of cotton in apple cider vinegar, put it on my finger and wrapped it with tape. In the middle of the night I woke up from a dead sleep. My wart was throbbing. The next day the wart was gone without disfigurement."
Castor oil is another perennial favorite. "Just dab a little drop on the wart at night before bed and do the same each morning when you get up. Soon you'll find you have no wart to treat."
Such home remedies have not been clinically tested, but they are inexpensive, safe and work at least as well as some medical treatments.
MENOPAUSE - Several options can prevent osteoporosis or hot flashes. Most people know that exercise, calcium and magnesium are important for bone strength. Vitamin D is also essential, but the optimal dose may be higher than that usually recommended. Postmenopausal women may need 800 to 1000 IU of this vitamin daily (Am. Journal of Clinical Nutrition, May
1999).
Some women find that foods such as soy and rye or herbs like ginseng, black cohosh or dong quai are helpful in controlling hot flashes or other symptoms of menopause.
Note: Every reasonable care is taken over the information offered here, however no responsibility or liability whatsoever will be taken for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any information, treatment, or application of any recipes or tips presented herein.