Salt yourself!

My family was (and still are!) great believers in the old adage of "what doesn't kill ya - makes you stronger". We are not accustomed to sterilizing or over cleaning everything and anything and so far (touch wood!), it seems to be working. Not to say that we love living in our own filth...quite the opposite, I am a very hygienically clean person but I am not overly paranoid about certain things. For instance, I do not vacuum everyday and therefore a certain amount of cat hair does tend to linger around on the carpets - but no one in my family is allergic to cat hair....so does that mean that we are lucky or is it that we have all built up an immunity? Who is to say?

However, back to the "Salt" topic....in order to reduce the amount of chemically produced medicines that we HAVE to from time to time ingest, we used salt to alleviate some minor common medical symptoms. And if salt and/or an aspirin tablet could not shift it - only then would we go to the doctors. So if I was unfortunate enough to have a sore throat - I would be instructed to gargle with a salt solution several times over the course of a day. A mouth ulcer would have to be dabbed dry with a cloth and then an ear bud, slightly moistened with water and dipped in salt, would be applied to the ulcer until the stinging sensation passed. Scraped your knees?? You guessed it! It would be bathed in salt water to kill any harmful bacteria. Stuffy nose? AGAIN a salt water solution would be squirted up your nasal passage to clear the blockage.

I just thought that I would share some of my horrific childhood "salt" memories, (can you believe that I wouldn't mention my sore throats or cut up knees readily!), but now find myself applying the same logic to my son's ailments. For one thing - it's certainly a cheaper remedy than a trip to the pharmacy and cannot do any real harm to yourself. Just don't ever drink it!

Oh and one last traumatic memory of my "salt" healing was having to bathe in a bath full of salt water for a WEEK following a operation in order to "cleanse" the area.....not fun! Not fun at all!