I'm a nurse in a rural hospital. Some of the people I care for tell me that a bee sting every two years or so will significantly decrease arthritis inflammation and pain. They attribute this remedy to the Chinese who came to this area a hundred years ago to work on the railroads and in the logging industry.
"Apitherapy," or bee-venom therapy, for arthritis goes way back in time. There are reports that it was used in ancient Egypt and China. Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) is purported to have written about bee stings for painful joints.
Doctors in this country used bee-venom therapy to treat arthritis during the first part of the 20th century. Hospital pharmacies even stocked venom for injections. After World War II, this approach fell out of favor because it was considered unscientific.
Proponents claim that honeybee stings can alleviate the pain of tendonitis, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and postherpetic neuralgia. This nerve pain lingers after a shingles attack and can be excruciating. The American Apitherapy Society (apitherapy.org) can provide more information.
I had a wart on my finger for 15 years. Doctors said they could cut if off, but I don't like the idea of surgery. My mother told me of an old gypsy remedy. I just knew it wouldn't work, and, in an effort to prove her wrong, I decided to go ahead and try it. Well, within two weeks the wart was gone.
Here it is: Cut a slice from a potato, rub the white part on the wart, then go bury the potato in the yard. Supposedly if you dig up the potato later, it will have grown the wart on it. This sounds way too silly, but it did work. Mom was right.
We don't know if this is a gypsy remedy, but it certainly is old. We have heard from a number of other people who have treated their warts successfully by rubbing them with raw potato or potato peel and burying the piece of potato.
I finally fell asleep last night but woke back up an hour and a half later. I had started getting cramps and a creepy-crawly feeling in my legs.
I know some people who have RLS (restless legs syndrome), so I decided to look it up and see if there were any remedies. I'm sitting at the computer right now with a bar of soap under each leg, and it seems to be working.
Placing a bar of soap under the bottom sheet, near where the legs will rest, is one of the wackiest remedies we've come across. We have heard from so many people that it helps, however, that it is clear some people do benefit. Besides, soap is inexpensive and doesn't have side effects. That cannot be said about the medications prescribed for RLS.
