What's your favorite natural remedy?

Hot lemon juice and water in the morning. It is ultra good for your system in general. Makes your skin soft and pretty because the combo helps to eliminate toxins. Cheers!

Vitamin E oil for sunburns. Works every time.

Braggs vinegar with the mother fungus. lol

Drink it for zip and energy, great for insect bites, minor wounds and a host of other things.

@Coloma Vinegar helps with quite a bit, doesn’t it! I always keep some on hand.

Cold aloe gel on sunburn. Takes the pain away and promotes healing.

Mom’s kiss on a boo-boo.

My grandmother taught me an “old” (lol) Chinese remedy to quell nausea and/or fever. It’s funny because it involves Coca-Cola! If you ever find yourself dizzy from a fever, the flu, etc., heat up some Coca-Cola in a pot until it starts to boil. Then add lots of chopped raw fresh ginger root, maybe about 2 tablespoons of chopped ginger per two cups of Coca Cola. Boil the concoction until the Coke absorbs the ginger thoroughly, then drink it slowly. The mixture will be a bit spicy, but about half an hour after you drink it, you will notice your nausea and fever dissipating. It’s even more effective if you wrap a warm blanket around yourself. You will sweat and get all hot, but the fever will snap and your dizziness will disappear. I tried this remedy a couple of years ago when I had the flu and it worked for me. I don’t know——but I think it has something to do with the ginger and the caffeine in the Coca Cola, and perhaps the glucose in the soft drink soothes an upset stomach or queasy feeling too.

Another Chinese remedy that my grandmother taught me is for muscular tension, stress, and headaches. I don’t know if Western people would want to try this, because it may seem bizarre and scary to some, but it helps.
Get some object that has a flat, thin, dull edge to it, like a stainless steel spoon or a large metal coin. Apply some menthol ointment like Vicks ointment to the area where you are experiencing muscular ache or malaise/headache——for example, the back of the neck, the upper back, your chest, etc. Then get someone to rub the edge of the spoon or coin on the medicated area. Rub briskly and rather firmly. After awhile, your skin will break out into a very red/purplish rash, the result of small blood vessels close to the surface of your skin. You don’t bleed, but the skin becomes reddish, usually with raised red spots. The brisk rubbing is a kind of “acupressure”, and along with the medicated menthol ointment, works on the principle of “qi” in traditional Chinese medicine. My grandmother used to get it done on her all the time whenever she felt unwell with a migraine or tension, and it always seemed to work, relieving her of the malaise. I know it may sound horrible, but she had no problems with this rather bizarre “home remedy”.

A scalding hot shower always makes me feel better.

Aromatherapy treatments. I use different kind and different type(essential oil,message oil,incense oil,lotion,spray,etc) of aromatherapy for my daily ritual. they’re all commercial product but natural. My favourite would be Lavender before sleep,to relax,or stress day. Geranium for tired and heavy day. Mint for refreshing day,if you feel dizzy,or hot. Chamomile for pain and gentle day. I also like Lemon,it’s just so fresh and refreshing.

exercise

Epsom Salts. It is supposed to have many uses, but I use it for aching muscles and when I am sick.

I suggest you listen to Tim Minchin, Storm

Death.

For a sunburn, if you get the sunburn wet and sprinkle baking soda over it, the heat and soreness instantly goes away.

For a sprain, if you tear strips of a paper bag, soak them in vinegar and then wrap strips around the sprained ankle or wrist, it takes the pain out. You have to put a sock or something over the paper bag to hold it in place and leave it until the vinegar dries.

If you get a bee sting you can take some baking soda and add a little water, so it is the consistency of paste and apply to sting. I’m not sure if it draws the stinger out or just the pain, or both, but it makes it stop hurting.

Gargle warm salt water for a sore throat.

I’ve been told salt water beaches are good for minor cuts and the such…Not sure on the complete validity of that though.

A daily walk/run around the duck pond down the road :)

oats in an old pair of tights swished in a sea-salt water bath is really good to stop itching and salt to stop scarring when you have chicken pox.

Water. Dehydration can cause all sorts of issues. Believe me.

Downing a teaspoon of plain sugar to stop the hiccups. it works.

Ginger Tea for tummy aches and it just smells really good. My mom and I don’t buy it in the packets, but we do buy the actual ginger, YUMMY!

Tea bags or cucumbers for puffy eyes.

Coca-cola for nausea! I’ve heard something about the artificial flavors and colors helps calm stomachs, in addition to the carbonation.

A good night’s sleep

dr. Pepper when I need a pick me up and green tea with honey for sore throats :D

!. sleep
2. fizzy cola and wonderbread for a hangover
[spongelike behaviour of wonderbread coupled with the fizzy gas relief]
gtanted the ingredients in 2. are not very “natural”
@MissA I will try the lemon juice and hot water. I now drink hot water alone to clear my throat

Cuts, scrapes, rashes or whatever then I use crushed up aspirin powder watered into a paste. My grandmother and her sisters learned this as kids and have passed it on as a quick, cheap and on hand remedy that works really well. Scars heal lighter and smoother, cuts heal faster and cleaner, swellings go down nicely and with a pain relief.

Toothpaste applied on mosquito bites.
After two, three minutes the itch is gone, you won’t scratch anymore and the bulge heals away quickly.

A spoon of sugar to fight gastric acid, a glass of milk does work too.

When your mouth or tongue is on fire due to spicy food, don’t drink water to cool it down, take a spoon of suger, and let it ‘melt’ on your tongue.

Marijuana.
Headaches ✔
Stomach ache ✔
Insomnia ✔
Pain ✔
Appetite stimulate ✔
the list goes on….

Oh, another bizarre Asian home remedy——if you ever cut yourself badly and bleed a lot, and other than taking a clean cloth or towel to stem the bleeding, or using a bandage wrap, you can try coffee powder——yes, instant coffee powder to stop or curb the bleeding. My sister-in-law, who is from Malaysia, says the people there use coffee powder to stem excessive bleeding from cuts and stab wounds. I’ve never tried it myself, but they say the coffee powder coagulates with the blood and starts to clot it almost immediately. Additionally, the coffee powder supposedly has anti-bacterial properties and prevents infection. I don’t know if this is true, but a lot of South Asian people use this home remedy when they don’t have anything else at hand. I remember when I was young I heard about the story of my older brother——as a kid, my older brother got his neck sliced by another child with a razor——they were both young and they were playing. (How the other kid got hold of a razor blade is beyond me). My grandfather took out some kind of Chinese herbal powder——a brown fine powder that looked like cinnamon, but smelled terrible! Lol. He quickly applied it to my brother’s laceration and the bleeding quickly stopped——the blood coagulated into a thick mass but the bleeding stopped. We lived in a very small town at the time, and nearest hospital was far away. This happened back in the early 60s, when calling 911 was not really feasible in such a rural setting. My brother’s neck wound was deep and serious, but fortunately, the “strange stinky herbal powder” worked, and it saved his life. To this day, I don’t know what the Chinese herbal powder was, but the coffee powder seems to work on the same principle. ;)

I usually use black pepper. It stops the bleeding real fast and actually doesnt burn like one would think

@uberbatman LOL. :D

Fresh air, water, and massage are probably my favorites.

@MRSHINYSHOES Chinese medicine should never be dismissed. It is older than western medicine. The coffee may work, at least in part, because it helps to coagulate the blood. The rest, I don’t know. But on the subject of coagulating blood you could also use flour, as it makes blood coagulate very well, too. I once used it on a pet bird who’d busted a claw while we were out, and would’ve bled to death without flour being applied to the end of her claw. She was still alive many years later.

@Andreas You are right. Western medicine sometimes makes fun of ancient Chinese medicine, but Chinese medicine is thousands of years old, and founded on natural principles and herbs, the view that the human body is in line (or out of line) with the universe, with nature, etc. Western medicine is much synthetic chemical-based. The drugs used are tested mostly on animals at first (mice), then given test trials on humans. We still don’t know the relative safety and dangers of these chemical drugs. Because Chinese civilization is so old, in the early days as it developed, many of the herbal medicines and concoctions used to cure people were tested on human beings from the very start, on prisoners and slaves. Some died as a result, and some were amazingly cured. Because of this, a lot of the Chinese medicines have great credibility, because they have been tried and tested for ages.

Yes, the flour remedy is on the same lines as the herbal powder my grandfather used, and the coffee powder remedy too. The herbal powder my grandfather used had “anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties” to it too. I wish I knew what it was. I remember him using it on ankle sprains too, as a poultice. It seemed to work on sprains too, and some “kung-fu” martial artists used the stuff for that very purpose.

@MRSHINYSHOES Just because something is “thousands of years old” doesn’t make it true. People were ignorant thousands of years ago and made up remedies based upon anecdote. The idea that because it’s old therefore it’s true is a fallacy.

Medicine works if it’s been proven to work. Period. Do you know what alternative medicine is called when it’s been proven to work? Medicine.

@Rarebear I never said that because it’s thousands of years old, it’s “true”. What I said, if you read my comment carefully, is that over time, a lot of Chinese medicines have gained “credibility”. Credibility does not mean trueness. The definition of credibility is “power to elicit belief”, and traditional Chinese medicine has done that——many respected Western physicians and scientists are now starting to believe the power of traditional Chinese medicine, and are starting to incorporate it in Western practice with Western medicine.

Chinese remedies have been tried and tested over countless times, unlike a lot of Western medicine, which is still in its beginning stages of trial and error. Look at how they are now finding out previously undiscovered dangers of some of the newer medicines on the market, like the cholesterol “statin” drugs. So many dangerous side-effects. Yes, medicine works if it’s proven to work, but if the “cure” is more dangerous than the ailment, then that means the medicine hasn’t been fully researched enough, and a lot of Western medicine is still like that, in its “infancy”.

@MRSHINYSHOES Most Chinese medicines are placebo effect. Others are poisons. Remedies are only proven effective if they that have been shown to be effective by a placebo controlled double blinded randomized control clinical trial.

Proactive intake of fluids (water, tea, diluted juice…). Humans should actually never get thirsty. When they do, they forgot to drink and this is the source of a lot of troubles. It’s also the main reason of an unpleasant hangover or unpleasant jet-lag (airplanes suck out the water of your body).

@Rarebear Where’s your proof that Chinese medicines have a placebo effect? Btw, one can safely say that almost all, if not all Western medicines are poisons too, if taken too much! And that is the truth! Lol.

Well, I don’t know if this really counts as a natural remedy or not but when I can’t sleep I take melatonin instead of any other sleeping pills.

Also whenever I have a headache, muscle ache, pain anywhere really, my mom who is certified in a whole bunch of hands on healing techniques does some on me. Whether it be shitatsu, the Bowen technique, Reiki, what have you. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But either way it generally feels pretty good.

And in general taking vitamins without over dosing them, natural enzymes for heartburn/indigestion, stuff like that. My grandmother who is 80 years old got hit by a car a few years ago. She didn’t break any bones and to this day is not on any doctor prescribed medication. She attributes this to taking vitamins and being pro-active of her health instead of waiting until something is wrong. She had acid reflux for years and none of the medications on the market ever worked for her. As soon as she started taking natural enzymes it stopped.

@MRSHINYSHOES You don’t prove a negative. The burden of proof is on those who propose so called “natural remedies” as being effective. It doesn’t work until you prove it does. That’s how science works.

@Rarebear You shouldn’t put so much stock in science my friend. There are many things that cannot be explained or “verified” by science, yet work or exist as such. Science still has not given us an answer about where man comes from——the theory of evolution can be debated forever, and it will never provide us with “proof” that man evolved from apes. Accordingly, a lot of traditional Chinese medicine does not need the “science of proof” that it works. It just does, attested by millions. As a matter of fact, many have turned to traditional Chinese medicine because it does work, and have given up hope with Western medicine, or found Western medicine to be injurious or even deadly.

Personally, I have found traditional Chinese medicine to be very effective. I don’t need a scientist or a Western trained doctor to tell me that it does or doesn’t. And many, many others would concur with me.

Besides, you shouldn’t be so close-minded about alternative, traditional remedies. Remember, a lot, if not most Western medicine is founded on traditional practices and remedies. And most people (even the most informed Western doctors and scientists) will tell you that mankind will benefit from BOTH traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine working together, because both have their relative strengths and weaknesses. I think you would agree with me on that.

Anyhow, I feel this thread has gone on long enough, and the discussion has gotten a bit off-topic. I will conclude here now and not re-visit this thread. So long my friend. :)

@MRSHINYSHOES

Science isn’t an organization, it’s a method (or collection of methods) for analyzing nature. It’s true, though, that not enough good science is applied to so-called alternative medicine. But we still have to rely on science when it comes to making decisions with medicine. Not that we should give up on unconventional methods; we should demand that they be competently studied.

I’m counting on the probability that if you are pretentious enough to say you’re done checking a thread, you’re probably pretentious enough to keep checking it anyway.

I always find that a glass of water helps. I never drink enough plain water.

@MRSHINYSHOES – You’re mistaken. Evolution is not being debated forever among scientists. Sorry, but religious nutcases in the US do not qualify as scientific debaters. Scientists do debate the origin of life. And you’re right that science cannot tell us everything. It can’t tell us about the ultimate origin of the natural laws and it can’t tell us anything about the purpose of having a universe in the first place. Or the meaning in the life of a human being. But science is able to tell us about evolution and how life develops and continues to develop. We can observe evolution today. In a lab. In front of our eyes. Ignoring all this is plain and simple ignorance and craziness. People should not fall into such trap blinding themselves voluntarily.

Some alternative medicines have offered scientific evidence, others have not. Medicine is not better just because it is “alternative” but a lot of areas are worth exploring. But it never should be treated like a religion based on faith. One cannot treat diabetes type 1 for example by using alternative medicine. It is not possible. Doing so means killing this person. And this is a crime.

@MRSHINYSHOES Oh my, there are so many things wrong with your post I don’t know where to start. If you like, I’ll pick your post apart sentence by sentence. But for anybody who is reading who cares, everything you wrote is wrong. Everything. Read what he says and believe and do the opposite.

apple cider vinegar for warts. its absolutely amazing. put some in a cotton ball and tape/bandaide it to the wart. turns black, falls out.

Yogurt, Sugar, and Honey, very good for exfoliating and really makes your skin glow.
1 tablespoon of yogurt
2 teaspoons of sugar
and two long drizzles of honey,
leave on face for 5 minutes
rinse with hot water.

Honey…