Good Morning! The following was in my email this morning, all old fashion ideas that sometimes work. I think the onion in your ear is a bit odd!
Got the sniffles or your head is hurting? No need to head to one of the mega drug stores and pay a fortune in over-the-counter medications. Many of the ailments that plague us and our kids on a regular basis can be treated with some frugal homemade remedies.
Disclaimer - I am not a health care professional, just a regular person sharing some old-fashioned tips. Use at your own risk. When in doubt, please see your doctor or other health care professional with any questions or concerns.
Headache
As soon as you start to feel a headache coming on, drink a big glass of cool water. Headaches are often a sign of dehydration in which case the liquid will help better than an aspirin.
If you don’t catch it in time, or the water didn’t help, try wetting a cloth and adding a few drops of mint oil to it. Lay the cool, wet cloth over your forehead, close your eyes and relax for a few minutes.
Cough
Heat some milk and stir a spoon full of honey in it and sip slowly. Right before bed, when coughing usually gets worse, you may want to take a spoon full of honey. It will coat the throat and stop the cough - Don’t give raw honey to children under the age of 2 though.
Get some Vicks (generic works fine) Rub, rub it on the bottom of your feet and put on a pair of socks. Then hop in the bed. The coughing should stop within about 15 minutes.
Get a cold, wet washcloth and put it on over your throat, then cover it with a dry towel.
Cold
Good old fashioned chicken soup is always my first choice. Be sure to breath in the steam from the hot soup… it’ll help open up your sinuses.
Another excellent remedy is to take the juice of a lemon and mix it with a cup of hot water and honey to taste. The honey will sooth a sore throat, the steam coming out of the cup will make your sinuses feel better and the vitamin C in the lemon helps your immune system.
Other than that plenty of fluids and rest should get you better in no time.
Sore Throat
Gargle with either garlic tea (press up to 6 cloves of garlic into some very warm water), or sage tea (steep sage leaves in boiling water for a few minutes… take the sage out and allow the tea to cool a bit.
Keep your throat covered with a cloth or scarf.
Drink some hot milk with honey to sooth the throat.
Ear Ache
Chop up a piece of onion, wrap it in some cheese cloth or a thin kitchen towel and place it on the ear. This works best if you’re laying on your side with the hurt ear up and then lay the onion on it.
Insect Bite
Get a solid deodorant stick and rub it on the insect bite.
Chew some parsley and put it on the bite. Takes the sting out within a few seconds.
Poison Ivy / Oak Rash
Take the rind of a watermelon and rub it on the rash.
Nausea
Drink some warm peppermint tea, eat some licorice or eat some ginger. Gingersnaps and candied ginger work well.
Fever
Get in a slightly cool bath. The cool water will help get your body temperature down. Alternatively you can make cool towel compresses. Dip a hand towel in cool water, wring it out and wrap it around your calves. Cover it with a larger dry towel. Repeat for the other leg. Rewet the towels with cool water as needed.
Make some linden flower tea and sip about 4 cups a day to get your fever down.
I’m sure there are plenty more homemade remedies out there that our mothers and grandmothers have relied on for years and years. Feel free to share the ones you know of as a comment below.
17 Responses to “Frugal Homemade Remedies”
HOME REMEDY: My Grandmother used to go fresh mint. It really does help settle the upset tummy. She would have you chew on the leaves until completely pulverized. Then you just discard it. If you don’t have a plant handy, substitute a peppermint patty. This has helped more times than I can remember!
If you’re eating chicken soup for a cold, add a dash of Tabasco sauce. It really clears up the sinuses.
Trouble sleeping? Drink some chamomile tea, put some lavender in some sheer fabric and rub it over your pillow and set it nearby, and, as my husband says, “DREAM about it”, meaning, whatever you can’t stop thinking about…..turn it into a dream! The way I do that is allowing myself to begin thinking nonsense thoughts about it, wandering, disconnected, like you do in dreams.
Trouble waking up? Eat an apple. It wakes you up better than caffeine! Of course, going to bed earlier is what we REALLY need! Get up a half hour earlier and as soon as you get dressed, exercise. It will clear your mind, get your metabolism going, and allow you to plan and pray. Be sure and eat some protein right afterward, (like an egg) so your muscles have fuel to build with. Otherwise, your body won’t build muscle as well.
ginger tea, made from peeled sliced ginger root(about a 2 inch piece) is great for colds and also for upset stomach even after chemotherapy. Just simmer the ginger until the water looks like weak regular tea, for the colds drink it hot with honey. apples are good for headaches but you have to eat the peel.
When we were kids and would get a bee sting, my mother would get out the meat tenderizer. We would make a moist paste of it, apply to the sting, and it felt better quickly. I don’t know why it worked, but I still use it today for horse fly bites, etc.
Just be sure not to drink the sage tea if you are a nursing mother as it will reduce your milk supply. So is also a nice home remedy for drying up milk supply:-)
okay for bee stings make a baking soda paste and put it on the sting… for tooth ache use clove oil or cloves in whole pieces put on area that hurts… for fever I use alcohol rub it works wonders… those are a few remedies that were passed to me from my mom… oh if you get gum in your hair use peanut butter or ice to get it out… I have used this and it works… someone in my house gives the 5yr old gum and she always falls asleep with it in her mouth … and it ends up in her hair…lol
A plant remedy to keep bugs off… use pepper juice and mix with water in a spray bottle… all bugs have taste buds and if its hot they wont eat it…. spray on plants… any plants… this works great…
Tea Tree Oil. A friend recommended it for skin irritations and I’ve used it on a few rashes, insect bites, and she used it on poison ivy to take out the itch. When Compound W nor freezing worked to remove a child’s warts, we tried tea tree oil. It worked! Applied every day for a few weeks we saw results nothing else has managed.
“Get a cold, wet washcloth and put it on over your throat, then cover it with a dry towel.” People always think I’m weird when I tell them this one! I’m glad to see it here because I know it works! My mother and grandmother used this, and I have used it on my own children when they were young. I don’t know how it works, but I know it does.
If tea tree oil is applied to a small cut or abrasion as soon as possible, it will heal much faster.
“Lambs Ears” ` lovely low fuzzy-leafed plant is easy to grow and spreads beautifully. It needs at least partial sun. The leaves make wonderful bandages - they stick even less than the commercial dressings that are not supposed to stick to a wound. Just use some first aide tape to keep the leaf in place.
Treat an insect bite with Jewel weed - take a leaf, mush it up really well and just rub the juice on the itch. It really helps!
If you know your skin has been touched by poison ivy, oak or sumac, FIRST flush thoroughly with COLD water and then wash well with soap and warm water and rinse thoroughly. The cold water tends to wash away the urishol (itch causing oil.)
If you can keep an aloe Vera plant handy, if you get a burn in the kitchen, immediately break off part of a leaf and rub the juice on the burn. Often, the burn won’t even show up, but you must do it right away.
Living in the South and being an avid gardener I’m often afflicted with severe insect and ant bites. I carry a spray bottle of kitchen or bathroom cleaner containing bleach with me in the garden. When I’m bit, I just spray and the itch or sting VANISHES! It’s amazing.
Sinus Trouble: This is what I’ve found that works. I have gotten some of the same advice from my physician’s assistant and doctor. Boil a pan of water on the stove. Take it off the stove and put in on a trivet on the table. Take a towel and put it over your head and the pan and breathe the steam. A super hot washcloth placed on the face where the sinus pain is also helps. I also suggest taking ibuprofen as it helps to reduce the swelling. My dh finds using his neti pot helps. I like to use my saline nasal spray. It often flushes out whatever pollen or dust that is bothering me quickly.
Sty: If you have a clogged tear duct or a sty, put a hot washcloth on it. It helps your tear duct relax and let go of the dirt and you will get well faster.
At the very first sign of a BLADDER INFECTION, drink one cup of strong burdock root tea. This remedy is very effective if taken early on. It is not recommended to drink more than one cup as this herb is a diuretic and will disturb your electrolyte balances. Burdock root is available at your health food store and is inexpensive.
If you rub with alcohol to bring down a fever - be sure to rub down the body (direction of head to toes). If you rub up (toes to head) the fever could rise.
I have found that Epsom salts are helpful with many types of rashes. I am allergic to so many things - when I have a small rash that I know isn’t ivy or sumac - I will use a compress with hot water and epsom salt. It stops the itching and helps draw what’s causing the rash out of the skin. The rashes stop itching and heal much quicker.