quote:

Originally posted by berto:
She can't get pregnant the first time.

Or if she's on top.

{Joke break}

Two brunettes and a blonde were sitting in an OBGYN's waiting room.
Brunette 1: I'm probably gonna have a boy because he was on top.
Brunette 2: Well, I was on top so I'll be having a girl.
Blonde: OMG! I'm gonna have a litter of puppies.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
<snip>
If it didn’t hurt it wouldn’t heal the wound—speaking of merthiolate and mercurochrome.

Or tincture of iodine.

Cut a wart off and feed it to the chickens, and it won't grow back.

No swimming for 30 minutes after eating.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
If you swallow poison, you should try to vomit it out (when was the last time you saw Ipecac syrup in someone's medicine cabinet?).

That is appropriate for some poisons.

I just thought of another: Put peroxide or alcohol on every cut or scrape, or it'll get infected.

Used to be, if you had any wound, no matter how small, out came the big brown bottle and the cotton balls. My parents were big believers in putting peroxide on everything.

But now, studies have shown that peroxide and alcohol cause further cell damage and can actually retard the healing process. Nowadays, I use soapy water for minor wounds, and povidone iodine (aka Betadine) for more serious wounds, which is less harmful than peroxide or alcohol. Chlorhexidine is another good option for wound cleaning, when something beyond soapy water is needed, but it's not quite as cheap or easy to get as povidone iodine.

If you keep that up, you'll go blind!

My mom was a believer in peroxide, but when I was a child she used merthiolate or mercurochrome. I still use peroxide for minor scratches (I have cats). I've checked with my doctor and he says it's OK for occasional use.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
If you swallow poison, you should try to vomit it out (when was the last time you saw Ipecac syrup in someone's medicine cabinet?).

That is appropriate for some poisons.

That’s still being taught as far as I know. It was stopped being recommended for substances that cause as much or more damage coming up as going down.

Some other things to keep in mind about inducing vomiting at home is that the type and responsiveness of emergency medical care is far different than it was 50 or more years ago. For the vast majority of people in this country, it would be ill advised to attempt to treat a poisoning themselves. Then there is the fact that poisons or dangerous chemicals are much less common in households today, and most of them are packaged far more securely and conspicuously than they were at one time to help prevent accidents. I knew a child who consumed a bottle of flavored “baby” aspirin in the 1950s before resistant packaging was used for such things and required stomach pumping. That sort of thing may still occur for a variety of reasons, but it must be far less common.

For minor cuts/scrapes, though, for years I have been a firm believer in benzalkonium chloride to hasten healing and to avoid the nuisance of the constant irritation of a partially-healed and inflamed wound. But the real revelation was the discovery of “New Skin.” I use that stuff all the time and love it.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:


If it didn’t hurt it wouldn’t heal the wound—speaking of merthiolate and mercurochrome.

How I truly hated that burning red chromatic looking crap.

mom was a nurses aid at the Veterans hospital,

While eating breakfast one day , in second grade,
she plopped down two x rays and to color photographs ( 8 x 10's)

of perfectly healthy lungs, and a lung and a half that were being removed because of lung cancer.

that pretty much did the job on me ever smoking,

soon after that , Mom and dad both quit smoking.

quote:

Put butter on burns.

Why couldn't unsalted butter be used for that? Sure, it's obsolete now that drug stores with ointments/salves are on every street corner and everybody has a car to get to them, but not invalid.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:


If it didn’t hurt it wouldn’t heal the wound—speaking of merthiolate and mercurochrome.

How I truly hated that burning red chromatic looking crap.

My mama used to put it on my and tell me it was cold not burning.

Slapping the back of a choking person.

My ex-wife was absolutely convinced that root beer caused bladder infections.

The opposite of old wives tales and bad information, is true to day. With the amount of information on the internet, I see a lot of internet self-diagnosis that proves firmly that a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.

My wife figures she's an MD based her her ability to use a search engine, and self-medicates, self-diagnoses, and argues with doctors over what she's "learned."

She nearly died last year with a gall bladder problem; the doctor told her in no uncertain terms that she needed surgery, and she refused, based on what she read online. Fortunately for her, when I dragged her back to the ER a few hours later, she was in too much pain to refuse the surgery. Much longer, or much farther away, and she might not have made it.

Aspirin prevents heart attacks. While true in one sense, aspirin also causes far more problems, and may be responsible for far more deaths than any benefit it might provide. I overheard an ER MD recently comment that she felt aspirin was the "deadliest drug on the market" at present. Partly tongue in cheek, she did have some strong feelings on the matter, due to widespread overuse.

quote:

Slapping the back of a choking person.

That is actually still part of the obstructed airway protocol for a conscious person.

If it turns red, blue, black or smells, go see the Doctor.

Chiggers burrow under your skin. If you coat chigger bites with nail polish, you'll cover the hole in your skin they draw air through, and they will suffocate.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
mom was a nurses aid at the Veterans hospital,

While eating breakfast one day , in second grade,
she plopped down two x rays and to color photographs ( 8 x 10's)

of perfectly healthy lungs, and a lung and a half that were being removed because of lung cancer.

that pretty much did the job on me ever smoking,

soon after that, Mom and dad both quit smoking.

We saw these kind of pictures in high school. I never smoked.

If you eat watermelon seeds, one will grow in your stomach.

Some smart-ass kids in school said blood was blue, because the veins you could see on your skin were blue. Then they'd say it turned red when exposed to air.