MAQzine

41 Razor Burn : - A razor burn victim himself, Yarnell recommends slathering aloe gel (Aloe vera) on your skin when you're done shaving. You can buy aloe gel in drugstores, but look for a product that has few additives and is made with 100 percent aloe. 42 Sore Throat : - Most people know that echinacea (Echinaceae spp) can help you fight off a cold. But it also acts as a mild local anesthetic when taken in liquid extract form, says Yarnell. Mix 1/2 teaspoon of the liquid extract with about 1/4 cup water, gargle, and swallow. Do this every hour for up to 48 hours or until the soreness disappears. 43 Sties : - The warm compress that most doctors recommend to heal sties can be made more effective if you soak the compress in a solution containing the herb eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis). Steep 1 teaspoon dried eyebright in 1 cup boiling hot water for 10 minutes and strain. Soak a washcloth in the solution, gently wring it, and apply it to the stye for 15 minutes two or th...

By ELIZABETH SVOBODA Published: August 31, 2009 As a child, Meghan Swann had suffered several bouts of strep throat , and when she was a teenager, she thought she felt another one coming on. The main symptom was familiar — a dull sore-throat pain. But this time something was different; there seemed to be a foreign object stuck in the back of her throat, something she couldn’t quite swallow. “So I pushed on my tonsil, and something popped out,” Ms. Swann said. The yellowish object was about the size of a piece of gravel and had the sulfurous odor of bad breath . “I thought it was a piece of food or something,” she said. From then on, Ms. Swann, now 25 and living in the St. Louis area, engaged in a secret ritual: popping the mushrooming bits of debris out of her tonsils with a cotton swab whenever they got big enough to cause discomfort. One day, she mentioned her problem to her mother — and was surprised at the knowing response. Those squishy little things were tonsil stones, her mot...