Home Health Remedies

Dr. Travis Stork: When we ask you to share some of your home remedies, our first one is from Ruby who is here with us today. So Ruby I am excited to hear about this home remedy.

Ruby: Hi doctors. How are you today?

Dr. Travis Stork: Good.

Ruby: My home remedy is one that has been around for a long long time but it’s very effective for chest congestion and basically it’s a mustard plaster or a mustard paste, my mom did it for me and I did it fir my kids.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: So that’s where you got it, through your mom and now your --

Ruby: That’s right. Basically, you use a tablespoonful of dry mustard. You add that to a quarter cup of flour and then you add water to it just enough to make a paste and then I like throwing it into the microwave oven on a clean piece of cloth whether it’d be an old t-shirt, a cut up old t-shirt or an old sheet and just spread it on the sheet.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: Alright. We followed your directions here. I am going to spread it on. We are going to try this on the hand cold.

Dr. Travis Stork: Okay.

Dr. James M. Sears: How are you feeling? Are you feeling okay? Feeling better?

Ruby: My son had bronchitis and he is 25 and I put it on and when I did, it alleviated the symptoms after --

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: So I am starting to feel a little warmth from that.

Ruby: Warm, right.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: So that helps to loosen up mucous right?

Ruby: That if it’s done at night it really does help his breathing you know breathing through the night were it really does get congested.

Dr. Travis Stork: Why not try it.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: Sure.

Dr. Travis Stork: Right.

Dr. James M. Sears: How’s your hand looking?

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: I think I’m getting a little hand facial.

Dr. James M. Sears: You’re not allergic to mustard, aren’t you?

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: No.

Dr. James M. Sears: Okay good.

Dr. Travis Stork: So when you’re done, you just wipe it off. How long would you leave it on?

Ruby: Leave it on for about 30 minutes. I think max is 30 minutes. And then you might even want to follow it up with -- I like a hot water bottle after the 30 minutes, take it off, another 20 minutes or so then add a hot water bottle to keep expanding the chest --

Dr. Travis Stork: I want to tell you right it’s about a month from now on the show, Dr. Drew has his “my mustard hand peel.”

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: Yeah. But this now ends up working really good compared to the other one and we may have something.

Dr. Travis Stork: You know what? These are always so fun, thanks for sharing that.

Ruby: You’re welcome.

Dr. Travis Stork: We appreciate it.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: And Travis as soon as you -- with something that we --

Dr. Travis Stork: We use an ointment, all these chest ointment -- okay. My mom love putting that on my chest.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: You haven’t mentioned that in a while.

Dr. Travis Stork : We have Jessie in Orlando, Florida who emailed us her home remedy. And she writes “Hi Docs, I have a family secret home remedy I’d love to share with you. Whenever my family’s skin gets dry, I apply a puree of cucumber directly on the skin. It helps the skin feel supple.” Jim you’re a supple kind of kind guy. Won’t you give this --

Dr. James M. Sears: Well, I’m going to try this anyway. Yeah, you see a lot of products in the stores, skin products that kind of have cucumber in it, so this makes sense. This is essentially just pureed cucumber. There are no other ingredients. If you put it on your skin --

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: Well this, we have done before. We’ve done cucumber facials --

Dr. Travis Stork: I think it would be really good after a sunburn.

Dr. James M. Sears: Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Masterson: Yeah.

Dr. James M. Sears: That would feel really good after a sunburn. It is really soothing and it’s cold. But there is a lot of vitamin C in there and it kind of sooth the skin and its actually can reduce the swelling. You kind of leave that on for about 15 to 60 minutes or so.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: So basically --

Dr. Lisa Masterson: The peels you can put them on your eyes.

Dr. James M. Sears: There you go --

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: Jim, I’m going to say it’s an anti-inflammatory right?

Dr. James M. Sears: If I’m -- the back with him, I’m going to cover --definitely covering my eyes.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: I mean to say anti-inflammatory.

Dr. James M. Sears: Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Masterson: Yeah.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: That’s why when you go the spa they give you the cucumbers to put in eyes.

Dr. Lisa Masterson: To put them in your eyes, yeah.

Dr. Travis Stork: It’s another option that certainly you know what if it works for you, go for it.

Dr. Lisa Masterson: Yeah, It’s like you haven’t heard anything.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: It smells good.

Dr. Travis Stork: And we have Donna on the phone from Antwerp, Ohio with our last home remedies. So Donna what’s cooking in your kitchen?

Donna: Hi doctors; you’re going to laugh at me, everybody does but take a piece of bacon out of your fridge and cut a little piece of their fat off. I am prone to my knees getting an infection when I scratched them up. Take a little piece of that bacon fat and put them on your scraped knees and put a bandages over it and that bacon fat slows the infection right out and you’re healed.

Dr. Travis Stork: Huh -- but Donna you just said you end up having a lot of infections could the bacon be causing it.

Dr. Lisa Masterson: There you go. Now, how does that feel Jim?

Dr. James M. Sears: This is why swine flu is such a problem.

Dr. Lisa Masterson: This would probably a contributory infection besides having a lot of dogs follow your home.

Dr. Travis Stork: So what I do love about this though is again these are home remedies that people try. There are so many different ones out there and Donna even though I am not going to be trying your remedy it doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s cool that you try it. I think it’s -- I guess it needs a full study on these things.

Donna: It is been in our family for generation.

Dr. Andrew P. Ordon: It can hurt.

Dr. Lisa Masterson: Well, its got that good bacon smell.

Dr. Travis Stork: Yeah, it does. So thanks so much Donna but more importantly for everyone watching at home. The one thing I have to advise you don’t use a home remedy that could cause harm. You don’t want to do that.