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ER Doctors Caution Against Relying on Home Remedies
October 28, 2005
Do an Internet search on “home remedies” and you will be amazed by the array of unusual methods people sometimes use to treat common medical maladies. Some are odd, like putting raw onions on the soles of your feet to lower a high fever. Others are dangerous, like pouring gasoline on an insect sting to “draw out the venom.” And some are just plain gross, like swallowing a spider web to treat asthma.
Many of these home remedies have been handed down through the generations, concocted during an era when people didn’t have ready access to preventive health care or professional emergency medical treatment.
While your great uncle Pete may swear that eating a serving of Jell-O every day will cure your arthritis, Christopher Waldschmidt, M.D., medical director of the Emergency Department at Saint John Hospital, Leavenworth, Kan. cautions patients against putting their faith in home remedies. “If no studies have been done on them, there is no science to back them up,” he stated.
Some traditional medications have proven to be effective a preventing and treating disease, noted Mari Poulose, D.O., medical director for the Emergency Department at Providence Medical Center, Kansas City, Kan.
“A lot of the medicines used today do come from plants, such as our chemotherapy drugs or heart drugs,” she said. But using untested herbal remedies and home cures can sometimes do more harm than good, she cautioned. “The problem with alternative medications is they have not been proven or tested by the Food and Drug Administration, and there is no control for them.”
For instance, Dr. Waldschmidt said, “I’ve heard of people taking baking soda to cure reflux. That may actually work, but no one’s done studies on the correct dosage, so we don’t know how much baking soda is safe.”
Some people swear that drinking several cups of strong, black coffee will stop an asthma attack. “The caffeine in coffee could help open the bronchial tubes,” Dr. Waldschmidt explained. “But the caffeine could also raise the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure to dangerous levels.”
“One home remedy that does work is putting a wet teabag on a wound that is bleeding,” said Dr. Poulose. “The tannic acid in the tea will stop the bleeding.”
The doctors were quick to warn against using some commonly practiced home remedies, like putting butter on a burn. “The butter just contaminates the burn and provides a nice medium for bacteria to grow in,” Dr. Poulose said.
Likewise, putting wet chewing tobacco, meat tenderizer, mud or a dill pickle on an insect sting will only make it worse, the doctors agreed. “All of these things can cause more tissue damage and increases the chances of getting an infection,” Dr. Poulose said. “A little hydrocortisone cream, however, will make things better quickly.”
Dr. Waldschmidt advised using extreme caution when considering using a home remedy to treat a medical emergency. “We have to use an ounce of common sense,” he said. “If it seems a little odd, it probably is.”
The wisest way to handle a chronic condition or emergency situation is to turn to trained medical professionals, such as your primary health care provider or physicians in an emergency department.
“If you have a fever or a cough that is persistent, if your condition isn’t getting better or is getting worse, if you’re having more pain, or if something doesn’t seem quite right, you need to contact your physician,” Dr. Poulose said.
“You should come to the emergency department if your symptoms are so severe they aren’t relieved by the medication prescribed by your doctor or those you’ve gotten
over the counter,” Dr. Waldschmidt advised.
So, before you follow great aunt Wanda’s instructions to rub a banana peel on a laceration to ease the pain, or hold a lime on your forehead to cure a headache, thank her for her concern, then call your doctor for medically-sound methods for treating your maladies. For emergency treatment, please contact the Emergency Department at Providence at 913-596-4180 or Saint John at 913-680-6100.
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