Misadventures With Home Remedies

In an earlier post about Indian Home remedies, I had written about various home remedies that were passed down in my family and how much I relied on them. They are like the first aid for health conditions until I can visit a doctor. But, my road to learning the home remedies was not an easy one. There were quite a few misadventures before I learnt to tell the difference between useful remedies from quack remedies.

I clearly remember one such mishap that my sisters had while growing up. One of my sisters had a severe acne problem and she was desperate to try anything to cure them. One day, in a women’s magazine, we read a home remedy for acne. It involved making a poultice of ginger paste asking with a few other household herbs. When we read that, my sisters joked about the remedy seeming like a recipe for curry rather than a home remedy. For those who tried Indian cuisine will recognise that ginger garlic paste is a staple in all curries 

We tried the remedy, nonetheless. The only problem was that, amidst all the jokes, my sister accidentally, used garlic paste instead of ginger paste.

As soon as she applied the poultice on her face, it started to burn. Garlic paste is acidic in nature, so any contact with open wounds and cuts causes severe inflammation and irritation to the skin. You can imagine the effect it had on my sisters face. It was red as a tomato and the acne was aggravated two-fold. We had to apply a lot of aloe vera and calamine lotion before the burns subsided. 

At the end of the day, the pimple did not vanish but our itch to try new remedies was cured for a few months. 

There was another instance when I accidentally used the whole egg instead of just the egg white in my hair pack. To make matters worse, I washed my hair with warm water. The stink it raised in my hair would not wash off easily, nor would my memory of it. My hair may have become soft and smooth because of the egg white conditioner, but the yolk in the pack and the warm water almost became a dish of scrambled egg on my head. My hair was left stinking along with the whole bathroom for a few days.

Despite such misadventures, I still turn to home remedies for most day-to-day health problems. I’ve just learnt to be careful before trying them. I have to add a cautionary note here. Try only those remedies from sources you trust, unlike the ginger paste remedy that we tried. Secondly, always follow the instructions correctly. Don’t mix up ingredients or instructions.