Home remedies

I try not to do the “you kids don’t know how easy you have it” speech with my children very often, because I realize that each generation has its own set of problems and issues to deal with. For example, it is very hard for my son do his homework while playing a video game online with his friends and texting his girlfriend. I didn’t have these pressures. I just, you know, did my homework.

But I must say that there have been some improvements in medicine that have definitely worked to their advantage. For example, they have never had their skin burned by the compound of red death otherwise known as “merthiolate”, or “mercurochrome.”

My mother loved me, I am sure, but she did not miss an opportunity to put this stuff on me. It supposedly was some sort of antiseptic, and every time I had the smallest of scratches, she would drag me into the bathroom and get out the little dropper and put some merthiolate on me.

Words can’t describe how this stuff burned. She may as well have dipped a fireplace poker in the fire and branded me with it. And not only did it burn, it turned your skin bright red. How did anybody think this was a healing agent?

It got to where I would hide my injuries. I could have walked into a running chain saw, and I wouldn’t have told my mother, because I knew exactly what she would do. This got to be difficult, because I was a little boy and naturally got scratched and scraped up daily. But I would just put on long sleeves and long pants and a stocking cap until everything healed up.

I did some research on this and I’ve discovered that they don’t use merthiolate or mercurochrome much anymore because, for one, it doesn’t work, and for two, it’s TOXIC! Well, heck, I could have told you that when it was burning a hole in my skin.

Another favorite cure of hers was hydrogen peroxide. This wasn’t as bad; it didn’t burn, it just bubbled on your wound. Again, I’m not sure that something that causes a chemical reaction on your skin is doing you much good, but it’s good for a few minutes of fun if you’re sitting around the house bored. Wait, am I the only one who does that?

When I would get ulcers in my mouth, my mom had another homemade remedy – Goody powders. Ulcers are very painful, so I was willing to try anything to make it feel better when I had one. It was simple, you just poured a Goody powder directly onto the ulcer. For about five minutes after doing this, the pain was unbearable. I would literally drop to my knees, tears running down my face, as the throbbing pain coursed through my mouth. I remember looking at my mom the first time she had me do this and wanting to say, “Why do you hate me?”, but of course I didn’t say anything, because my mouth felt like I had swallowed burning charcoal.

But, before long, that pain went away and the ulcer didn’t hurt at all. I could eat and drink all I wanted without pain, until the Goody’s powder wore off in a couple of hours. I have since learned from a dentist that putting a headache powder on an ulcer like actually burns the skin and prolongs healing, and is a bad idea. I have to tell you, though, it brought me a lot of relief back then. I will neither recommend nor discourage this home remedy.

If I got a fever blister, which I often did, my mom had a special remedy that she got from a local pharmacist. This stuff wasn’t over-the-counter, it was under-the-counter, because it was a homemade concoction that the guy had come up with. It contained ether and was, apparently, illegal. But I have to tell you, it worked. That pharmacist either retired or got arrested, I’m not sure, but I know you can’t get his ether cure anymore.

Some of this sounds pretty bad in retrospect, but I survived it. My mother meant only the best for me, and even if her home remedies could have killed me, it would have all been out of love.