‘What’s the worst health advice you’ve been given by your relatives?’ – 23 home remedies that are best avoided

In the days before the NHS, people often had to make do when it came to healthcare, especially if they couldn’t afford a doctor. A few herbs here, a poultice there, and everyone crossed their fingers.

We’re fortunate that’s no longer the case, and yet a kind of ‘folk medicine’ mentality still lingers in many people. If you’ve ever been told that chewing a raw clove of garlic will fix a cold, you’ll know all about it.

They’ve been chatting about this on the AskUK subreddit after No_Pea-1 posted about their own experiences…

‘What’s the worst health advice youve been given by your relatives?

And they kicked things off with a few hall of famers of their own.

– My MIL swears by Vicks on the soles of your feet for the flu “because feet skin absorb the most and the Vicks draws out the toxins” (thought foot skin was famously quite thick, honestly).

– My late mother’s suggested a used tea bag on a surgical wound that went down to the bone, which normally had to be packed and dressed with proper wound care.

– MIL insisted germolene and an icepack on a bacterial mosquito bite infection that needed antibiotics.

– FIL suggested germolene on a knife wound, which actually required a saline wash and some stitches.

Honourable mention of rusks in a baby bottle for colic.

And it turned out they weren’t alone, as these tales of equally as worrying home remedies showed…

1.

‘I wish I was making this up but my MIL believes that if you’ve thrown up and still feel nauseous after, swallowing a small amount of the vomit back down again will send signals to your body to stop throwing up.

I do not know the logic, or how she came to this conclusion, or indeed how she lives among us. She’s one weird lady.’
–gentletonberry

2.

‘Aged 6, I had to stand over a drum of hot tar/bitumin and inhale the fumes as a “cure” for whooping cough, so I could be a bridesmaid at my uncles wedding. This was early 1970’s rural Ireland.’
–TotallyTapping

3.

‘A wet blue paper cloth applied to any injury works wonders. Says any dinner lady circa 1980s.

Works on bruises, cuts, broken bones, dislocated elbows, you name it. Nora would pull out a damp blue paper cloth to put on it and tell you it’s not that bad. The fact that your parents ran you to A&E the second you got home with your arm at a weird angle to your body was an overreaction.’
–Aromatic_Pea_4249

4.

‘Can confirm, happens today. My six year old calls it a “cold compress”. I probed what that was “it’s blue paper towels wet, and in a square, a compress”.’
–NJellybean

5.

‘My mother told me I should get pregnant to cure my acne.’
–Roxygen1

6.

‘Not sure if this counts as health advice but when I was signed off work with depression and anxiety my mother’s advice was ‘just don’t be stressed’.’
–CrazyWombat1998

7.

‘My grandma said to let dogs lick your wounds because they have antibacterial saliva. Okay gam gam.’
–louiselovatic

8.

‘My mother in law told me to put slices of raw white onions in my socks every night when covid was going on. Said if I caught anything the toxins would be drawn out of my feet and into the onions. She loves a bit of that nonsense, bless her.’
–anonynonnymoose

9.

‘Dropped a box on my foot whilst working with my dad. Rest it elevated and rub x cream onto it. Foot was broke mate.

Mother reckons colds are brought about by the weather and insists at my big age of 25 I wear a coat to avoid a cold when it dips below 18.’
–RedRamblerUK

10.

‘My mum used to absolutely refuse to let us out of the house with wet hair when we were kids. She seemed to think we’d end up with a ‘paralysed head’ whatever that is.’
–Zepplinologist

11.

‘In the 1930s my gran used to take my dad to smell the road menders tarmac to cure his asthma. Apparently she swore by the hot tar fumes to clear his chest. To be fair they were poor as church mice and they didn’t have many options pre NHS.’
–Adventurous_Ad3451

12.

‘My Gran kept a jar of homemade treacle and onion cough mixture in the kitchen. Incredibly, it worked as our coughs would magically disappear whenever she threatened to give us a spoonful.’
–thumbdumping