Woman Tweets Her “Genius” Potato Necklace Remedy For Her Son’s 102.3° Fever & People Online Are Facepalming
Getting sick is scary. Especially if there is something that never used to happen, or something that happens rarely, but feels different, it immediately sends alerts to our brains.
You know what else is scary? Hospitals. However, while getting sick is genuinely scary because it can mean death in certain cases, hospitals are places of healing, and the only scary things about them are the needles and other procedures we need to endure in order to get well.
So, it is no surprise that some people try everything (or anything) before actually turning to licensed professional doctors for help, giving rise to homeopathy and other unconventional treatments.
A mom recently tweeted about how a potato necklace drew out her son’s fever
Image credits: G_Merls via Reddit
This exact thing happened with a young lady whose son got a 102.3-degree fever one day, and the first action she took was heeding the advice of her grandmother: putting a potato necklace on the boy.
Apparently, her grandmother was convinced that potatoes draw out the fever and turn black due to the toxins absorbed. In reality, the potato simply oxidizes, but that did not stop around 27,700 people from showing their support by liking her tweet on the matter.
The mother’s tweet included two photos of her son and the caption: “My granny told me about making a potato necklace to draw out fevers (it turns completely black) and y’all it really works! Nolan’s fever yesterday was 102.3 now he’s at 98.2.”
While it’s good that the fever has subsided and the kid was hopefully feeling better that day, the mother was completely oblivious to the fact that no matter what, the human body will always protect itself against everything that’s out to kill it. So it’s much more likely that the temperature went down because the immune system was doing its job. And the potato—it was oxidizing. That’s it.
It quickly drew 27.7k likes… and a lot of facepalming from the rest of the internet
Image credits: Unknown
Needless to say, the Internet was facepalming left and right at this. While many people poked fun at this, others shared other homeopathic treatments passed down by their elders (that may or may not work). Read on to find out about them.
Public Service Announcement: the best thing that anyone can ever do for themselves and their loved ones is to seek medical attention whenever there is good reason to. Also, unless you are a licensed medical professional, never attempt to take on serious illnesses on your own, and always seek the advice of professionals in the field who have experience and proper knowledge on the matter.
What are some ridiculous homeopathic treatment methods that you’ve learned about, that don’t work, but people believe in them anyway? Let us know in the comment section below!
Here are some of the internet’s “treatments” to high fever and other illnesses…
"While some homeopathic treatments are proven to work, that does not mean that all of them do" - first of all, the above remedies, albeit equally stupid, have nothing to do with homeopathy. Homeopathy is the belief that an agent that causes a disease in a healthy individual can cure it in a sick one, that a solvent - usually water - can take on the properties of said substance if you add energy by shaking and that therefore with every step of dilution - or "potentisation", as homeopaths call it - increases the efficacy of the solution. And no, no homeopathic remedy has ever been proved to work.
We call a treatment "working" something that have more success rate than a placebo. There is nowhere to be found that homeopathic treatment get a higher success rate than eating an empty pill.
people often mistake natural/herbal medicine and homeopathy. not the same thing!
Exactly.
Also, to be clear, the post has nothing to do with neither homeopathy nor herbal medicine! Also, there are studies behind herbal medicine, in case someone thinks it's nonsense or unproven, many are ongoing to try to find substances in local plants.
They probably "work" as a placebo
Even crazy at it may sound; placebo effect is real Take 100 people with similar symptoms. You will have a better success rate with a placebo than with nothing. (pain feeling decreasing, more likely) It's very limited and far from what you can get with an actual drug, but still a bit more than giving nothing the the patient.
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Wow, well I was agreeing with you until you said that no homeopathic remedy has been proved to work.
homeopathic remedy has the same success rate than a placebo. AKA, it's not working. But if you have some study to prove otherwise, please share, cause no one have these.
What's with this new trend about rejecting modern medicine?
It's not new, it's just more visible.
Western medical history has been very, very cruel to African Americans and indigenous people. To this day, black and indigenous people are less likely to have access to medical care and if they do, they are often poorly treated and their symptoms ignored. It makes sense why people would turn to their own made-up remedies than go to a doctor, even if they don't actually work. The medical establishment needs to undo a lot of the damage it has done.
It's the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.
You mean, as in: People who have no knowledge about how the human body works, believe that it's all a lot easier than it really is?
Evolutionary natural selection. We aren't controlling the over-population ourselves so the dumbest amongst us have evolved to do everything possible to reduce the numbers.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Using natural remedies is not a trend. It's something that people rely on and complementary to modern medicine.
Yes, honey is a good example in my opinion and in scientific studies. Making sensible use of both where appropriate. Though I'm not going with the potato necklace quite frankly. Nothing in a potato that could work transdermally. Superstition and natural get blurred and one damages the reputation of the other unfortunately.
Using natural remedies has nothing to do with rejecting modern medicine. Natural remedies have scientific data to back them up. Like drinking certain teas when you are sick or rubbing aloe vera on a burn. You’re mixing things up.
Can I please unread that last comment (about used tampons and urine)? I really didn't need to know that. I think I'm gonna be sick (and no, I'm not looking for a crazy advice about how to cure that)
Right?! I was thinking the same thing! Poor kids.
darn, i must've missed that one... Now i feel i have to go back just to feel horrified:D
The page mentioned in that comment is stunningly eye opening. I am a regular on DAWI2. If you do check it out you will see some things and honestly bathing in used tampon water might not be the wildest of them. Ever heard of black salve?
I have heard of black salve, and of the poor fools who rely on it to cure their skin cancers, some of whom then DIED because they refused to have a real doctor treat them. (sigh*
"While some homeopathic treatments are proven to work, that does not mean that all of them do" - first of all, the above remedies, albeit equally stupid, have nothing to do with homeopathy. Homeopathy is the belief that an agent that causes a disease in a healthy individual can cure it in a sick one, that a solvent - usually water - can take on the properties of said substance if you add energy by shaking and that therefore with every step of dilution - or "potentisation", as homeopaths call it - increases the efficacy of the solution. And no, no homeopathic remedy has ever been proved to work.
We call a treatment "working" something that have more success rate than a placebo. There is nowhere to be found that homeopathic treatment get a higher success rate than eating an empty pill.
people often mistake natural/herbal medicine and homeopathy. not the same thing!
Exactly.
Also, to be clear, the post has nothing to do with neither homeopathy nor herbal medicine! Also, there are studies behind herbal medicine, in case someone thinks it's nonsense or unproven, many are ongoing to try to find substances in local plants.
They probably "work" as a placebo
Even crazy at it may sound; placebo effect is real Take 100 people with similar symptoms. You will have a better success rate with a placebo than with nothing. (pain feeling decreasing, more likely) It's very limited and far from what you can get with an actual drug, but still a bit more than giving nothing the the patient.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Wow, well I was agreeing with you until you said that no homeopathic remedy has been proved to work.
homeopathic remedy has the same success rate than a placebo. AKA, it's not working. But if you have some study to prove otherwise, please share, cause no one have these.
What's with this new trend about rejecting modern medicine?
It's not new, it's just more visible.
Western medical history has been very, very cruel to African Americans and indigenous people. To this day, black and indigenous people are less likely to have access to medical care and if they do, they are often poorly treated and their symptoms ignored. It makes sense why people would turn to their own made-up remedies than go to a doctor, even if they don't actually work. The medical establishment needs to undo a lot of the damage it has done.
It's the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.
You mean, as in: People who have no knowledge about how the human body works, believe that it's all a lot easier than it really is?
Evolutionary natural selection. We aren't controlling the over-population ourselves so the dumbest amongst us have evolved to do everything possible to reduce the numbers.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Using natural remedies is not a trend. It's something that people rely on and complementary to modern medicine.
Yes, honey is a good example in my opinion and in scientific studies. Making sensible use of both where appropriate. Though I'm not going with the potato necklace quite frankly. Nothing in a potato that could work transdermally. Superstition and natural get blurred and one damages the reputation of the other unfortunately.
Using natural remedies has nothing to do with rejecting modern medicine. Natural remedies have scientific data to back them up. Like drinking certain teas when you are sick or rubbing aloe vera on a burn. You’re mixing things up.
Can I please unread that last comment (about used tampons and urine)? I really didn't need to know that. I think I'm gonna be sick (and no, I'm not looking for a crazy advice about how to cure that)
Right?! I was thinking the same thing! Poor kids.
darn, i must've missed that one... Now i feel i have to go back just to feel horrified:D
The page mentioned in that comment is stunningly eye opening. I am a regular on DAWI2. If you do check it out you will see some things and honestly bathing in used tampon water might not be the wildest of them. Ever heard of black salve?
I have heard of black salve, and of the poor fools who rely on it to cure their skin cancers, some of whom then DIED because they refused to have a real doctor treat them. (sigh*