Set horns to swoggled: what did you not expect to work that actually does?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I’ve got this killer morning sickness (ha. “Morning” sickness.), and nothing works on it. I don’t throw up, I just have this godawful full body malaise, you know? It scoffs at ginger Altoids. Peppermint tea? Ha. Saltines? Don’t even. My doctor prescribed Zofran, but I think I’m getting some unfortunate side effects from that so I’m trying to avoid taking it more than necessary.

So I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here and tried Sea Bands. Clearly woo-woo bullshit, but hey, it’s only six and half bucks worth of bullshit. They’re elastic bands with little plastic studs that are supposed to go over some dumbshit fakeass acupressure point on your wrist. All the pregnancy books mention them but they are clearly stupid, right?

They came yesterday and my husband was all “those aren’t magnets, are they? Are there crystals? Are they tourmaline?!” So I reminded him this was all his goddamned fault in the first place and put them on.

I went to bed and took the stupid things off, because you seriously aren’t expected to wear them 24 hours a day, right? They’re kind of itchy and really tight.

Five minutes later I was miserable. I put them back on assuming, of course, that it was just a coincidence.

Instant relief. (Not complete, but maybe 90% better.)

Same thing when I took them off to shower this morning.

If that’s the placebo effect, I will happily spend six and a half bucks on this particular placebo. (The thing is, I haven’t told most people at work, so it’s going to be hard to explain these ugly black wristband things. Also it’s hard to type in them.) I might marry this placebo in one of those weird conservative slippery slope deals - “next thing you know women will be committing bigamy with a six dollar wristband!” If Sea Bands had mouths I’d kiss them on them.

So what did you think was a total waste of time or money that turned out to really be great? Did you buy something As Seen On TV? Did your mother-in-law give you a “hey, throw this out for me” gift that you really love?

2

Huzzah, no more feeling sick! Good for you :slight_smile:

My aunty has cancer (fucking you fucking cancer) and is on this experimental treatment which is supposed to be really hard with horrible side effects.

Then recently she said she was on a special diet. My heart plummeted. I thought “oh fuck no, she’s given up on the treatment, she’s gone with the woo and now she’s going to die and there is nothing I can do!” She’s normally not completely cray-cray, but is an old hippy who thinks “natural = better” and such.

OK, so the diet is basically almost-woo, from what I can tell. I don’t know exactly what it is, but the real doctors ok-ed it for alongside her treatment, so at least it isn’t bad. What the diet is supposed to do, is counteract the horrible side effects. AND IT DOES! She is the only person who has been able to continue the treatment directly, without having to stop between for a break. As a result, it’s working really well for her. Her docs now want to know more about the diet.

So what if the theory behind the diet is woo. If this helps her through the side effects and kick cancer’s arse even for a while, I’ll take it. :smiley:

3

For me, it’s the “bouncing dead battery” thing.

Someone passes along a :FW:FW:FW of a stupid idea, if a battery bounces, it’s dead, if it fails to bounce it’s still good.

I mean, really, what is this stupid crap? Then I tried it and damn if it doesn’t work.

What I had forgotten is that batteries are chemically driven, and when chemicals react, their properties change. So, a battery that is new has a different chemical structure from a battery that is used up, so there’s really no reason to assume it will have exactly the same physical properties. Mass shouldn’t change, but other properties, like how high it bounces, may change.

4

That’s great, gracer! My husband is doing this low-FODMAP diet thing suggested by his doctor that sounds like total and complete woo but does seem to work for him as well. I don’t know if FODMAPs are really his problem or if just any restrictive diet would have allowed him to identify some trigger foods but it’s more helpful than anything else he’s tried. The problem is with food that you can’t just NOT EAT, so it’s hard to tell exactly what bothers him and we’re way behind on challenging a lot of foods - but he’s definitely learned that, say, corn is a problem. Which is huge for him!

5

By sticking the car fob under my chin and using my head as an amplifier, I can greatly increase the distance my fob works. Works really well when I’m in a parkasaurus lot at the mall and can’t remember where the damned car is.

I’ve been doing this for years and hav eha dn ona stys idee ffect seit her. :wink:

6

In 1980 I was having extreme knee pain, so my doctor sent me to have an MRI. This whole thing was rather new: I was the first person to have arthroscopic knee surgery in that hospital, and the first to have an MRI in that facility. So I had the MRI, and immediately my knee pain almost disappeared. Over the next few days the pain gradually reappeared. I told this to the knee doctor, and he said it was psychosomatic, MRIs are merely magnetic, and there’s no way magnetism can have any effect on my injury.

I still had the surgery, only because my insurance wouldn’t pay for an MRI every few days.

7

I bought a super cheap (as in $9 cheap) hand-held vacuum cleaner a couple of years ago, thinking it would be a cute novelty for the grandkids (if it worked at all).

But DAMN, the thing is still going, and it does an altogether reasonable job too. It’s had a couple of changes of ‘C’ cell batteries, but I find it indispensable for those times when I really don’t want to pull out the big vac to clean up a little mess on the floor.

And a bit like panache45, I had a weird rash a few years back that my GP thought was Grover’s Disease. He sent me to a dermatologist who, on visual inspection, agreed with the GP’s diagnosis…but took a biopsy just to be sure. Sent me out the door with all sorts of weird and wonderful presriptions, and the bloody rash disappeared the next day.

8

I’ve mentioned before that I found Shout Color Catchersto be incredibly effective (I was going to say “a life saver” but given the other posts in this thread, it sounded a little hyperbolic.) Anyway, I accidentally washed a partially white shirt with something red, and the white turned pink. I was going to toss the shirt, but then I remembered the ads for Color Catchers, and through I might as well give them a try. I put three in the wash with my shirt, and voila! It came out even whiter and brighter than it was before I washed it the first time. Now I throw in a Color Catcher whenever I have something deeply dyed in the wash, and I haven’t had another color transfer issue.

Note: There are a bunch of bad reviews on Amazon complaining about the Color Catchers getting caught in a high efficiency washer and damaging it. Read the instructions, people! If you have a high efficiency washer (as I do) you need to put the Color Catchers into a lingerie bag before adding them to the wash.

9

I’m always a little sceptical about medicine. If I take aspirin and the headache goes away in a few minutes, I always wonder if it wouldn’t have gone away anyway if I’d just waited. But a few months ago, I pulled a muscle in my back to the point of not being able to stand. So I rubbed some IcyHot on it and damn if that didn’t clear it right up! It sort of made me look like a wimp, though. Being knocked down by something a little IcyHot could handle.

10

I’ve actually seen a number of programs lately discussing diets and it seems that fasting creates a change in the body that to me sounds like a “reset button” effect. the body reacts in a positive way to a restriction in caloric intake. These were PBS shows and the researchers weren’t selling anything. Sorry to be so vague but they went into a lot of detail on the changes that took place and if I’m not misremembering, it sounded like it was beneficial if one was dealing with cancer.

11

My insurers and I spent over $30,000 on my torticollis, TMJ, migraines, and ear pain issues. Doctors had few answers, and provided little relief. Physical therapy had almost no effect. I had two years of misery.

I spent less than $500 on acupuncture treatments. Almost all of my TMJ symptoms are gone. My migraines are gone. My ear pain is gone. My neck has better range of motion now than I can ever remember having. Plus, afterwards, I feel really relaxed and loose, like I’ve had a great massage.

I don’t care if it’s woo. It is cheaper and more effective than “real” medicine.

12

1 - you did exactly the right thing when you blamed it all on your husband.

2 - if you need to explain it, repeat after me: “They’re a counter-irritant that distracts the neurons that would otherwise be creating the sensation of morning sickness.”

Unless you meant that you haven’t told the folks at work about the pregnancy. In that case, you’ll need another story. Maybe about preventing carpal tunnel.

:eek:

:eek:

How did you ever think of this? Who thinks “maybe the signal will go farther if I route it through my head?”

And does it go farther, still, if you open your mouth?

13

I don’t know, but… SCIENCE!

(I’ll see if I can get an answer this weekend.)

14

When I was a teenager, I discovered that Advil, Tylenol, and Motrin did nothing to take away the pain from menstrual cramps. It was like they were sugar pills. My cramps weren’t at “pass out or vomit from pain” level, but they were pretty dang bad and I suffered for years. Then a friend of mine suggested trying Aleve, and I was resistant for a while because how could it be any different from any of the other OTC pain medication I’d tried?

But wouldn’t you know, it works! I don’t even have to take it before the pain starts – I can be in full-blown cramp agony, take two Aleve, and the pain is gone within 30 minutes and stays gone until the meds wear off in ~8 hours. It’s really improved the quality of my life during that week each month.

15

Trivial compared to many of the ones already posted, but I was at a Yankee Candle outlet store once and my SO bought a metal, decorative “lid” for their jar candles. The idea was that it didn’t block the light, but it reflected some of the heat back into the jar and the candle would burn more evenly. Damn if it doesn’t work. Those candles burn so evenly, no wax is left up the sides of the jar. They work on almost any jar candle.

16

This isn’t a money thing but - I was at a wedding once, I wasn’t in the Party but I was family and hanging out in the Bride’s room before showtime. Some random friend of the bride suffered a critical failure while applying her lipstick and sent the lipstick skittering across the room and right down the front of the Bride’s white gown. Fortunately, the Bride was in another room getting her hair done and didn’t see it.

We all stared in shock for a moment and then I grabbed a can of hairspray - the good stuff, the kind that comes in giant aerosol cans. I soaked the area with hairspray and then used kleenex in light circles and the lipstick came right off.

I have no idea where I first heard that hairspray could remove stains and I was as shocked as everyone when it worked. But thank God it worked. I didn’t stop to question it so it would have been my head if it had smeared the stuff around.

17

I don’t know where I heard of this one, but I do it too.

And the cool thing is, it always works. I have tried before/after, comparing whether it beeps while not under chin, then under chin, then not, from the same spot. It always seems to extend the range.

18

I have a lot of arthritis pain, mostly in my hips, knees and shoulders and my Doctor told me to try one Ibuprofen and one Tylenol rather than two of either. It really seems to work SO much better for me. If it’s just a placebo effect, I’ll take it.

19

I’d be curious to find out if this worked as well if you got on your knees before holding it to your head. IOW, I wonder if it’s just the head height at which you’re holding the fob vs. at your hip that’s doing it, or if you got even better results holding it above your head.

20

Science!