Thursday Thirteen #795

Today, some helpful home remedies/fixes for various and sundry things. I have tried all of these, with varying degrees of success.

1. If you need a fast way to make your teeth shiny, rub them with olive oil.

2. Castor oil applied daily to spots on your skin can make them go away. However, it must be done daily, and the spots may reappear when you stop using the castor oil.

3. If you have small, raised moles and you've had your doctor check them out and you know they're just nuisance growths, you can tie a piece of dental floss around them and remove them. Just be sure you've checked them out first.

4. Mayonnaise or shaving cream can help lessen a white spot on furniture (the kind caused by somebody leaving a glass on the furniture).

5. Vitamin E rubbed on scar tissue can make it look less, well, scarry.

6. Aloe helps with burns. It can also help with stomach acid issues, but always check with your doctor first.

7. For sore throats, add Milk of Magnesia to your salt-water gargle (I also add children's liquid Benedryl which has a numbing effect). The Milk of Magnesia adds a coating that will ease the pain. This also helps with canker sores.

8. For laryngitis, boil together a cup of apple cider vinegar, a tablespoon of honey, and a teaspoon of tabasco sauce. Use it as a gargle. Save the mixture in the refrigerator and reheat it in the microwave. (Yes, it tastes as bad as it sounds but it helps.)

9. Cherries, especially tart cherries, help with gout and some types of arthritis. Like everything else, one has to eat them daily and it may take weeks to see results.

10. Peppermint oil rubbed on the forehead can ease a headache.

11. Ginger can help with an upset tummy.

12. Apple cider vinegar helps with stomach acid problems. (I don't know why; it seems counterintuitive.)

13. Lastly, I am going to address tinnitus. I have had it as long as I can remember. Back in the fall, I had a case of swimmer's ear. The antibiotic drops the doctor gave me helped the infection, and as a bonus, my tinnitus went away. Then it came back. On my next trip to my doctor, she told me my ear canals were too dry. She suggested sweet oil. The sweet oil I remember from childhood seems to not be available; everything is simply olive oil. I had homeopathic ear drops in my cabinet that I had used a few times for ear pain, and I asked if I could use those to relieve my dry ear canals. The doctor said sure, so my husband began putting them in my ear twice a day. And my tinnitus went away. If we miss a day, it comes back, and some days it is there anyway, but it's not as bad. The drops I am using are Hyland's Natural Earache Drops. You can find them at CVS and probably other stores. However, I have also tried the olive oil, and it helps the tinnitus as well (it's just messier than the premade ear drops). This may just be me, but it might be worth a try. Maybe everyone with tinnitus has dry ear canals? You'd think the medical community would have figured out that this could be a problem by now, wouldn't you?

__________________

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 795th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.