People's Pharmacy

For more up-to-date information on drugs, herbs and home remedies visit The People's Pharmacy Home Site at peoplespharmacy.us

Silver May Turn Children Gray

Posting Date: 10/04/2004

We are sending you our 100-page book, Chocolate Without Guilt. It has recipes for low-fat chocolate desserts. We?ll include an hour-long CD radio interview with experts discussing the health benefits of chocolate. Anyone else who would like this combination, please send $19.95 to: Graedons' People's Pharmacy, No. CWG-476, P. O. Box 52027, Durham, NC 27717-2027.

Q. For years, I have been plagued with terrible leg cramps. Neither quinine pills nor tonic water helped much and I often spent half the night up with cramps.

I read a syndicated column in the paper, and I love the fact that the doctor is not afraid to pass on a few folk remedies. One suggestion sent to him by a reader was to put a bar of soap (not Dove or Dial) beneath the bottom bed sheet.

Under the cover of darkness (so my husband, who is an M.D., wouldn't see), I slipped a bar of soap under the sheet on my side of the bed. For two nights I continued to have mild leg cramps but by the third night they were gone. I have not had them since.

According to the syndicated physician, others have written to say it works. There are so many oldsters who would welcome this inexpensive cure for leg cramps.

A. We have heard from other readers who had success with this approach. We don?t know why the soap may help. But it is an inexpensive, low-risk approach.

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In their column, Joe and Teresa Graedon answer letters from readers. Write to them in care of this newspaper or e-mail them via their Web site: www.PeoplesPharmacy.org. Their newest book is The People's Pharmacy Guide to Home and Herbal Remedies (St. Martin's Press).