Home Remedies... That really work!

[PhilNH5]

I have an herb garden with both culinary and medicinal herbs. one remedy stands out. Horehound - for sore throats and colds. You can still find horehound coughdrops for sale if you look hard enough. So I grew some just to try. Got a cold so I brew up some horehound tea. Take a swallow and almost gag. My Lord that stuff is bitter and nasty. Add some honey - still yuck. Dump some out and dilute with more water. Still gross. I can say it did offer relief to my sore throat. But it was so gross tasting I never made another cup of horehound tea. Ripped it outta the garden in fact to make room for some other herb.

As kids my father gave us candied ginger root for nausea or car-sickness. Worked very well. But I can't grow ginger here in NH.

Aloe plant for burns. Wet tea bags acts as a chelating agent and will stop a cut from bleeding. Pepperment tea for stomach upset.

I have a shelf full of books devoted to herbs but the above ones are the only ones I routinely use.

Phil

[LazyJ_Arabians]

Poison Ivy - I figured this one out by accident. I discovered that scalding the rash with hot water brought excellent temporary itch relief but made it worse long term. So I tried scalding and then dousing with rubbing alcohol, voila!, the rash went away painlessly the next day. Now my regiment is: before going to bed when I first notice a rash I scald till I scream then pour on the alcohol till I cry, go to sleep, and wake up the next day with a poison ivy infection almost itchless and well on the way to recovery.

[RichZ]

Lavy J just reminded me of a good one. If you know that you've touched poison ivy, and you're in a wet area, pick up as much jewel weed (also know as "touch-me-not") as you can and rub it where ever you touched the poison ivy. The juice from the plant desensitizes you from the oil of the poison ivy, and you won't get it.

I'm pretty sensitive to poison ivy, and a few times I was pulling out vines, and realized that I was pulling poison ivy. The times I did the jewel weed trick, I didn't get it, the times I wasn't near any jewel weed, I did.

[Hank]

<font color="purple"> Hank, ( near the burgeoning metropolis of Wickenburg AZ Where my sister and brother-in-law live when not galavanting about) </font color>

Pat, there's a lot of that going around here [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Many homes have the extra garage with the 14 ft overhead door for the RV.

[Stoneheartfarm]

I have an herb book written by a Michigan Doctor who researched plants Native to Michigan (Most of the Northern US). His poison Ivy remedy is a tea made from Gale (sp?) leaves. He claims to have tried it and it works. I hope so, because I haven't been able to figure out anything to do with the stuff and it grows everywhere.

SHF