Doctors Share The Worst Homemade 'Cures' Their Patients Have Tried

At The Cost Of A Foot

"An older woman with a big, gaping foot ulcer visited her family in Indonesia. Her sister took her to a spiritual healer, who instructed her to make an ointment and apply it to the ulcer. The ointment included herbs, sheep urine, olives, human hair. The day after applying the ointment, she was to cleanse the ulcer in the ocean. After a few weeks of this, the ulcer would heal."

"Obviously it did not heal and a rare mycoplasma bacteria found only in the ocean grew in her wound, and she lost her foot."

– manlikerealities

Needless Loss

"I knew someone who got cancer and decided to starve it instead of taking chemo. First results after the 40-day fast were promising but not for long. He died in less than a year. The sad part is, the survival rate with chemo for this type of cancer is really high and it was detected quite early"

– bibba747

Double Lies

"Had the fortunate luck to be privy to a patient's super duper secret way of getting rid of leg cramps at night. Get a cork, not just any cork though, it must be from a bottle of red wine, and tuck it in between your toes at night. He was very sure that was the cure that Big Pharma wasn't telling us. Completely irrelevant that he started taking a magnesium supplement at the same time as his new found super cure of toe-cork-fondling. So Big Pharma, if you're reading this, we all know now."

– SakuraFerretTrainer

Soup To Zits

"Dermatologist here, dude was trying to get rid of his papulopustulose acne with a homemade mask, which consisted of a mix of betametasone ointment, honey, cream cheese, yogurt, banana, and make-up in cream for "color"

"So many bad things here and the dude developed a nodular cystic acne after 3 or so applications, which he did daily because of course."

"Who suggested this abomination? Various YouTube videos and his own initiative of mixing everything in a bowl to cure faster"

– an_annoyed_jalapeno

The Wrong Seasoning

"I took my daughter to the Dr for a recurring ear infection when she was about four. The Dr took one look in her ear and asked me if I had seen her putting any foreign objects into her ears and I said no. He then took some tweezers and pulled out a small piece of what turned out to be garlic. I told him I had no idea how it got there, he said it was definitely making her ear infections worse. Turns out that her Dad and stepmom had heard that garlic oil can help cure infections and they didn't have any, so instead of taking my daughter to the doctor like they should have, they literally just shoved a small clove of garlic in my daughter's ear and left it there."

– starmama90

What Does "Reasonable" Mean Anymore

"i'm a pharmacist who works in an ER. I had a woman come in for chest pain and when I was interviewing her for her medication history, she was telling me how bad the pain was that she took EVERYTHING in her medicine cabinet. I asked her to list what she has in her medicine cabinet/what she took. The list went: Tylenol (acetaminophen) 2 tablets, Advil (ibuprofen) 2 tablets, Aspirin 2 tablets , heroin 1-2 points, Gravol... At which point I kind of had to go: hold up - you used how many points of what? And the patient very matter-of-factly stated that she came in because the heroin didn't help with the pain at all. Which in some ways I guess was a pretty reasonable course of action - since she came in since the heroin didn't work."

– moxifloxacin25

Burns In The Third Degree

"Nurse here. I used to work in a rural magnet hospital in the South. Had a patient who was there because he'd gotten athletes foot and decided to use an old mountain remedy: soak your feet in vinegar, lemon juice, and BOILING WATER to kill the fungus."

"In fairness, the original remedy probably called for merely hot water, but the guy went a little overboard with the temperature. He gave himself some nice bilateral third-degree burns on his feet. BUT there was no sign of any athletes foot, so he had that going for him, which was nice..."

– withinyouwithoutyou3

Slippery Kitty

"Not a doctor but my vet friend once had a client rub butter all over her cat in hopes that the cat would lick it off because the cat had stopped eating."

– PookSpeak

There Should Be A Test To Have Kids

"Doctor in the family told me an infant was brought into the ER incredibly ill, shaking, and vomiting from her day care. she had a huge oral ulcer in her mouth that her mom tried to cure by killing the bacteria but they were out of mouthwash so she diluted vodka in apple juice. She had the "can i see the manager" hair cut and threw a huge fit when CPS was called."

– suitology

Yes, This Makes Total Sense

"my sister one twisted her ankle, what does my Middle Eastern mom do? She wrapped a raw egg on her ankle. My sister went to the doctor 3 days after."

– wumbowing64

Maybe It Was A Different Vegetable?

"Not a doctor but when I had mono my mother put a fucking cut onion next to my bed and said it would suck in all the bacteria and I would be fine in a few days. Ended up having mono for almost a month and got strep for two weeks directly afterwards."

– GodOfBeverages

Burn Them Away

"Not a doctor, but I used to get warts on my hands and feet. We couldn't afford a doctor, so my dad used to just put out cigarettes on them until they went away."

– irrelevant_usernam3

Wait, Really?

"One of my attending physicians from residency did his training in West Virginia and had a patient come in to the ER saying she had leaves coming out of her vagina. He goes to do an exam and there actually were leaves coming out and he pulls out a potato. Turns out she had a pretty significant prolapse (uterus/bladder drop) and she had been used it to fix the prolapse and forgot about it!"

– Hufflepuff1024

This Is Nuts!

"Not a doctor, but a child who survived a hair brained remedy idea."

"To begin, I should explain that I have very very VERY thick hair. I have broken brushes in half getting through tangles. I have to use elastic headbands as ponytails because regular ponytails snap."

"THICK HAIR."

"At one point when I was a kid, lice was going around the school. This happens. However, even after emptying several full bottles of medicated lice shampoo on my head, my hair was so thick they just kept keeping on."

"My mother (whom I have a whole buttload of various horror stories of and emotional baggage from) and my aunt (same) get together and put on the ole’ thinking caps."

"What could kill these stubborn lice?"

"Rubbing alcohol? Nearly killed me, With my asthma, but not the bugs..."

"Then they struck idiot gold."

"Somehow they reasoned that they should use Kerosene."

"They absolutely DREMCHED my head in the stuff."

"No matter how much I washed my hair for the next month, it smelled like the stuff. I was terrified of open flames like no rational person should be."

"Lice did die though."

"This was done forcibly to me again as a teenager. It worked once, it’ll work twice, right?"

"Yeah....still half expecting to end up with skin cancer on my scalp..."

– itsaplatypi

I Think She'll Have Bigger Problems Soon

"My coworker told me she and her daughter Uses Vick’s vaporub on their eyeballs to treat some allergy related symptoms."

– Gunslinger_11

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Gee, I Wonder...

"Not a doctor but support people quitting smoking. One client didn't understand why pouring orange juice in her ear daily wasn't working"

– gbell11

...Huh?

"This is similar, but it's the doctor instead of the patient. Once, we had the doctor try and help a patient with a sore throat. He bashed her neck with a shoe before escaping. His reasoning was that she can't have a sore neck if she has no neck, which I guess is right... we found him at Home Depot looking for a "pointer doctor stick""

– Ryan-The-Movie-Maker

Condiments Aren't Cures

"I'm a Paramedic and my partner told me the worst he has ever seen was for a burn patient. He said that he saw a teenager hobbling towards him covered in a bunch of white gooy gunk. So apparently homeboy was out in the country trying to start a big bonfire and he first decided to douse his big bundle with some gasoline before tossing a match in. Well it caught real fast and he got a big ol flash burn across his whole body. His momMa apparently use to be a "certified nurse" and covered him in mayonnaise because that would help treat the burn."

"Yeah nah, all she did was introduce a fu*kton of infection into his body and make it much more excruciating for him when my partner had to wipe it off of him and place burn bandages on him while they transported him to the hospital."

– acherem13

Google is not a licensed doctor, y'all! Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments.