Many moons ago, when I was pregnant with Trevor, I had such a horrid sinus infection that my eyes and entire face hurt, I ran a low-grade fever, and I had such painful pressure headaches that I could barely function. Of course, when you're pregnant there are many prescription and non-prescription meds that you're not allowed to take and the ones my doctor gave me didn't touch this thing! After seemingly days without sleep and out of sheer desperation, I asked a friend if she had any idea of something I could try. Just so happened she had a suggestion. She told me to go home, get my turkey baster, some distilled water, and some salt. Heat the water up until it was just barely warm, add the salt until dissolved, fill the turkey baster up with the warm salt water, put the end up one nostril and gently squeeze the bulb until water runs out the other side. Do this over the sink, she said. Right in that moment, I decided never to have dinner at this girl's house, especially not anything that would require basting-like a turkey, for instance! Even though I felt some resistance to the thought of putting a cooking utensil up my nose, my acute need for relief drove me to giving this a try. I coughed and sputtered at the first shot. My nose and throat burned with salt! About the third go-round with this nasal squirt gun, I expelled something that looked like a green extraterrestrial being which had crawled up my nose, died, and was now ready to be put in a glass jar full of formaldehyde and shipped off to the Smithsonian for posterity.Disgusting-BUT it worked! From that day on, I started feeling better and better, didn't have any more trouble with my sinuses the rest of my pregnancy and I never told anyone-till now-that I stuck a turkey baster full of salt water up my nose! That's one time when weird advice paid off!
When I was in massage therapy school, we spent some time discussing possible treatments for headache sufferers. One of my fellow-students privately told me of her "never fail" headache remedy: Have the person who is suffering from the headache sit in a comfortable chair, preferably a recliner, in a dimly lit room. Find a belt and cinch it up around the person's head as tight as it will go. Put an ice pack on the back of their neck and have them put their feet in the hottest water they can stand. She swears that within 15-30 minutes the headache will be gone. Uh, needless to say, I haven't tried this one personally, definately not at my workplace, and have only dared to mention it a few times in the most extreme cases during the course of my career as a massage therapist for fear of coming across like a nut-case! It's not a very professional sounding remedy. But it could work, I guess. Never heard back from anybody who tried it. Hey, someone give this a try next time you get a bad headache and let us know how it works out,o.k.?
The next example that comes to mind was when my family and I were living in Kentucky. There were some teenage boys living next door and whenever they went to a friend's house they cut through my backyard. No problem- except they kept stomping on my berry plants, vegetables, and flowers in the garden. I had tried asking them nicely to be careful when they walked through, but it kept happening. I tried asking the boys' parents but they were so checked out that it was apparent that they didn't care and wouldn't help solve the issue. Every day a little more damage was being done to the garden I'd worked so hard on...I was visiting with another neighbor who also bordered these boys' property. I asked her what she would do in my situation. Her response caught me a bit off-guard! She said she would go out in the woods and find a bunch of poison oak plants. She'd re-plant them, 10-15 plants deep, along the property line so that every time the little bleepity-bleeps crossed over there they'd get covered in poison oak! Furthermore, I should spray it two of three times a week with Miracle Grow so that it would get real tall and bushy and let it grow until it was crotch-level. That way they'd get poison oak on their balls and stay out of my garden! That'd teach em'! I think my eyes bugged right out of my head! I know for a fact that my mouth was hanging open to my knees! I blinked incredulously-she just had to be kidding, right? Nope! Dead serious. Even offered to help me get the plants! That was one batch of frightening, terrible advice that I did not follow! In fact, after that, I kept my distance from her and took great care not to piss her off! When we moved she said to be sure and leave a forwarding address so she'd know where to send the Christmas cards. Yeah, right! We're gonna see her on Dateline some night!
What's the most bizarre, wacky advice you have either given or gotten??
1 comment:
Worst advice I ever had was when my girlfriend Kristi suggested I let her drive my car between two closely parked cars ( the only exit we had ) needless to say, I had some explaining to do to my dad when I got home when one whole side of my car was scraped.
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