• Question: What’s the weirdest “home remedy” you’ve heard from a patient? Do you just nod and think, “Sure, drinking 10 cups of tea will fix that” or secretly panic inside?

    Asked by Corey to Kip H on 19 Dec 2024.
    • Photo: Kip Heath

      Kip Heath answered on 19 Dec 2024:

      I’m quite lucky that no-one has said anything really bad like that to me. The scariest one I’ve heard was during COVID when there was a suggestion that injecting bleach would cure it. I can’t think of a single reason to ever inject bleach.

      It’s also important to remember with home remedies is that sometimes people are desperate. If I had cancer and someone told me that drinking 10 cups of tea a day would save my life? I might give it a go anyway as it isn’t going to make things worse.

Comments

  • Photo: melissaupjohn

    melissaupjohn commented on :

    When I did my PhD in a remote part of southern Africa I was working with horse owners who weren’t able to reach a vet, so they tended to use a lot of home remedies. One of their home remedies for horses with upset digestive system (what we call ‘colic’, it can be fatal for a horse in certain cases if it is untreated) was to make the horse eat washing powder – needless to say this didn’t work (and I don’t actually know how they managed to get the horse to swallow it)