I have a friend of a friend of a friend etc. who is 8 month pregnant and was hoping her baby would “roll over” so she wouldn’t have a breech birth. A relative gave her an old home remedy which included a cold washcloth on the chest, and clothes pins on her toes.
What the frick? 
I’m no doctor or scientist, but I don’t think that would have too much effect on a baby yet alone its current living position.
Which leads me to the question, what are the weirdest home remedies you have heard?
I have occasional bouts of alopecia. I’ve got a tiny, persistent spot by my right ear, even though I now otherwise have a full head of hair. A barber at my neighborhood barber shop, staffed entirely with Italian-Americans and Italian immigrants, recommended daily application of garlic for alopecia.
Huh. I wonder where on her toes she put the clothespins.Moxibustion is a Chinese Acupuncture treatment used to turn breech presentation, and it also stimulates the toe points.
I think the oddest home remedy I know of is duct tape for warts. No one has the faintest clue why it works, but it does seem to be effective.
Wow, maybe it’s not as random as I thought.
I’ve heard of WD40 or Windex for warts, but never duct tape. I see a clinical study in the future. Call Mythbusters!
I know, right? Weird. I wonder if she (or whoever she learned it from) knows of the Moxi technique and was trying to kinda sorta replicate it with items on hand, or if two similar techniques were developed independently. I mean, it seems weird enough that one person would work out that tweaking the toes can make the baby turn, but two?
My family often refers to Listerine as the Jewish Windex. If you’ve never seen My Big, Fat Greek Wedding, the heroine’s dad uses Windex as a cure-all for everything from warts and acne to its intended use, cleaning. My grandfather was convinced that Listerine could cure anything, so he often washed his hair (what was remaining of it) in Listerine to get rid of dandruff. Not surprisingly, he always smelled minty fresh.
I used to live in rural Eastern Europe, so I’m pretty sure I can win this one. I visited a Bulgarian village healer when I had a terrible case of insomnia, and this was her cure for me. (Which my host mom took very seriously and I carried most of it out.)
Massage your feet with rakia. My host mom actually did this for me.
Pour the rakia into an empty bottle.
Put the bottle into a plastic bag, along with some dirt from the garden.
Put the bag, with dirt and rakia, under my bed.
In the morning, drop the bag into the river.
I did all of this except step #5. The river already had enough trash in it without my help. I’m leaving out the story of how she examined me and came to her conclusion that this was the proper cure, but rest assured, it was equally unusual.
The insomnia did eventually go away. shrug
I had a nasty cold while visiting Turkey in 2007/2008 (two years because I was there over New Year’s, not because it was such a long trip). A guy in a cafe in Istanbul was horrified by my wheezing and sneezing and made up a drink that he swore was his mom’s cure for colds - hot water, lemon juice, and a shitload of black pepper.
It was not as repulsive as it sounds, actually. But it did not magically cure my cold.
eta: I should add that Bulgarians think rakia is the optimal cure for all illnesses. Yech.
Was that the only advantage, or did it actually work?
I used banana skin on a wart and it worked, I could feel something happening, pulling sensation and it was gone in less than a week.
My husband tried the duct tape for a wart on his foot, and it worked! I have no idea how/why it works, but apparently it does. He’d even had it frozen off years ago, and it grew back, but it hasn’t come back since he duct taped it.
Our doctor said that duct tape and other remedies don’t actually remove the wart. What they do is cause irritation to the area which kicks in the body’s immune system. It works where that irritation is, and through that action, removes the wart.
One of my father’s childhood friends used to tie half a potato to his forehead if he had a headache. I have no idea if it worked, or how it was supposed to work. My father said that this was during the Depression, and so they used whatever they had around the house.
The smell was the only advantage (though, if I recall, Listerine was the medicinal-smelling mouthwash, right?).
My dad drinks a mixture of raw chopped garlic and lemon juice whenever he feels a cold coming on. He tried to get me to drink the stuff, too - no, thanks! But he swears by it.
Isn’t there some kooky thing about curing restless leg syndrome by putting a bar of soap under the bed?
One of my friends drinks a tablespoon of vinegar every day, and swears that it keeps her from getting sick.
Ah! The old washcloth on the chest ploy. I know something about this. My mother used to make a mustard plaster by mixing dry mustard with water, spread it on a washcloth, top with another washcloth and pin it around my neck.
It was spread out on my chest and supposed to help with a chest cold. What it did actually (besides loosen up the phlegm in my lungs) was burn the skin on my chest when she’d forget to come and take it off.
I’ve also heard of similar remedies involving goose grease.
In the case of a pregnant woman I’m wondering if a cold wash cloth on your chest would be something of notice and a good reminder that you shouldn’t roll over. Perhaps there was a thought that tossing in bed would tangle the cord or prevent the baby from turning when he was supposed to? The clothes pins would certainly be an extra reminder to pay attention to keeping the washcloth on your chest.
That’s goofy, isn’t it?
If true, you can still say that duct tape works even if by indirect action. Otherwise, a bullet doesn’t kill you. It’s that pesky loss of blood that kills you.
Duct tape for warts does work, when done regularly. We have planter warts situation here at Casa Ujest and the duct tape (with the wart juice stuff) keeps the wart from breathing and helps kill it off.
Fermented things can be good for your gut. Ask the Koreans and their love of kim chi. KIM CHI farts…wooooo.
If more people ate some fermented items, they’d have less intestonal issues, IMHO.
I was having major leg cramps pretty frequently one summer - growing pains, a result of my summer job being on my feet all day, who knows. But my grandmother said to put, not just soap, but specifically Ivory soap, under my fitted sheet, down at the foot of my bed. Not sure where she got this idea, but I googled it and lots of other people recommended it (mostly on so-crazy-it-just-might-work type ‘natural’ sites). Never tried it.