When my cousins visited for my mother’s birthday last month, some of my female cousins and I got into a conversation about our various remedies for arthritis. All of us females on my mother’s side of the family are afflicted with it.
Noni juice was the preferred tonic of one cousin, who has carpal tunnel as well as joints in her hands that tend to swell. White raisins soaked in gin was the preventive another cousin suggested. In my refrigerator is a jar filled with raisins soaking in gin. If the effective ingredient in that concoction has something to do with the sulfides/sulfites used to make the raisins golden, I’m out of luck because I use organic raisins (I have a sensitivity to sulfites). If it’s the juniper berries in the gin, along with the health benefits of raisins, it just might work.
Over the years, I have found sulfur-based compounds good for a variety of afflictions. The best salve for a pimple breakout was a prescription ointment I had years ago that had a sulfur base.
These days, my vitamin shake that I take every day includes my addition of a teaspoon of MSM powder. Go here for more information about Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). My arthritis symptoms are minimal.
My grandmother, who grew all kinds of (what we thought were) weeds in her back yard that she soaked in 100 proof alcohol and used for various ailments, including arthritis, also was given injections of gold for her swollen joints.
I wish I had paid more attention to my grandmother’s “old wives” remedies when she was alive. But I was a teenager and had other priorities.
I wonder what she would have thought about gin-soaked raisins.