2023-04-16 15:51:17
Today another nice new story about skin conditions. Not with me this time, but with my youngest daughter. It started with a few spots scattered here and there on her torso. Water warts, we thought. Almost right, it turned out to be chickenpox. In no time her little body was covered in red bumps and sores. ‘You can give her paracetamol’, the assistant from the general practice e-mailed, ‘and put zinc ointment on it, which you can buy at the drugstore.’ But why listen to a medical professional when you can also rely on random tips from unlicensed, anonymous people on the internet? Applying Vaseline was the highest rated advice on the Oma Weet Raad website under the heading ‘chickenpox’. Sudocrem was number two.
I don’t know who the grandmother behind Oma Weet Raad is, but she has never disappointed me. Did ink from a ballpoint pen get on your clothes? “Just put milk on it and rub it with a cloth.” Need to clean a CD? “Put some toothpaste on it.” Toothpaste also works great for hemorrhoids. ‘Smear a small amount of toothpaste on the hemorrhoids regularly. My experience: disappear like snow in the sun.’ Spilled tomato sauce on your sweater? Toothpaste. (In the meantime I have consulted Oma Weet Raad for all kinds of different matters so often that I could start a knowledge database for domestic discomfort myself, Julien Weet Raad. It just wouldn’t be a very reliable knowledge database, because my answer to every problem is vinegar. Or baking soda. Or a combination of the two. Descaling a coffee machine is still fine, but for abrasions it becomes a bit more dubious. Let alone hemorrhoids.)
The golden tip for chicken pox turned out not to be toothpaste, but an oatmeal bath. You take a hydrophilic diaper (or a cheesecloth or a washcloth), scoop some oatmeal into it, tie it with a rubber band and let it soak in a bath, together with your child. The water takes on a murky, beige color, like a polluted river. An escaped oat flake floats here and there. It looks pretty gross, especially in combination with a child’s body full of scabs and blisters. If, like me, you’re fascinated by that slimy cotton ball that floats in the water like a half-decayed rabbit carcass and squeezed it now and then, you’ll see a viscous, milky substance oozing out of it. I wouldn’t call it a panacea, but it does help against the itching and also seems to speed up the drying of the blisters. Moreover – and this is an exclusive bonus tip from Julien Weet Raad – you can use the bath water afterwards to make oat cappus. This is what you call a win-win situation.
#dont #grandmother #Oma #Weet #Raad #disappointed