My late mother had painful shingles when she was over 90 years old that
developed into a very painful neuralgia. The source appeared to be in the ear,
and the pain traveled down the nerve paths over her shoulder, front and back.
Her doctors in England claimed that no medication could help, so she really
suffered.
One night she couldn’t sleep. We tried every kind of cream,
calamine lotion and even cold water. I stayed with her in her room. In the
middle of the night, I was desperate to relieve her pain and suddenly remembered
what a friend, a recent immigrant from Russia, had told me. She said that she
uses ordinary white potatoes to heal all sorts of ailments. So I peeled and
sliced a potato and placed the slices on the painful area. It relieved my
mother’s pain, and she fell asleep.
About four months ago, I woke up one
night in agony. Some insect bites on my leg caused me a lot of pain, as if it
was shingles. I had nothing at home to use, so I sliced a potato and applied the
slices to my skin. The pain stopped. My aunt used to make a paste of potato
flour and water to put on my cousins’ scratches and injured skin when they were
children. Is there any scientific explanation for this? M.S., via email Dr.
Menachem Oberbaum, director of the Center for Integrative and Complementary
Medicine at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, replies: Many reports on
the “healing power” of raw potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) can be found in the
popular press. In traditional medicine, the juice of freshly squeezed potatoes
is used for stomach complaints because of its antacid and spasm-relieving
effects. The first recorded medical use of raw potatoes was for gastrointestinal
disorders, and it dates back to the Swiss physician Dr. Maximilian
Bircher-Benner.
Conventional clinical studies partially support claims of
the beneficial effect of potatoes for treating dyspeptic complaints. They
recommend taking one teaspoon or more of raw potato juice before breakfast and
in the evening before going to bed. Using cooked and mashed potatoes, applied
locally, has proved to be efficient in treating skin irritations or inflammation
(such as after intestinal surgery and fecal incontinence in healthy infants –
peri-anal dermatitis).
But skin burns were shown to react no better to
“bandages” of potato peels than, for example, applications of honey. Therefore,
burns should not be treated with potatoes or potato products.
Other
indications for using potatoes are pain relief or softening a furuncle (deep
folliculitis, a bacterial infection of the hair follicle); one can apply a pack
of warm cooked potatoes.
These indications have not been tested in
conventional clinical trials, however. Yet some people may benefit from the
“potato treatment.” There is also some evidence that potato proteinase inhibitor
might be useful in weight reduction.
But it is important for people who
use potatoes to treat conditions to know that they contain a toxic substance
(toxic glyco-alkaloids called solanine and chaconine) that may cause nausea,
dizziness, respiratory distress and other symptoms if they are ingested in large
quantities. Rare cases of death have been reported.
Beware of green
potatoes, and peel off every trace of green. When potatoes are exposed to light,
these underground tubers interpret it as a sign that they’re no longer
completely buried in the soil, so they produce chlorophyll pigments to help them
make use of the light’s energy and they produce bitter toxins to discourage
animals from eating them. The toxins are about as powerful as their better-known
cousin, strychnine. They apparently interfere with the structure of all our cell
membranes as well as with the processing of a nerve transmitter and can cause
hallucinations and convulsions.
Because the color change in a potato
parallels its accumulation of alkaloids, greenness is used as an indicator of
toxicity. In any case, as with all medical treatments, consult your physician
before you start using potatoes.
I am a 61-year-old man. I have suffered
from postnasal drip on and off since I moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv over 25
years ago. At the time, I was diagnosed as being allergic to house dust and dust
mites. An allergy to sage brush has since been added to my diagnosis. Until this
year, my allergy was confined almost exclusively to the autumn. This year
however, it has continued from mid- October until the present time and shows no
signs of going away. I find it very difficult to fall asleep, and I also
sometimes wake up in the middle off the night because of my condition. I have
seen an allergist and an ear, nose and throat specialist. None of the
medications that they prescribed (nasal sprays and pills) did any good, and even
the cortisone shot prescribed by my GP was of little use. I have an appointment
at Sheba Medical Center’s allergy clinic, but it is not for another six weeks.
Is there anything I can do before then?
M.G., Holon Prof. Meir Shalit, director
of the allergy unit in the clinical immunology department of Hadassah University
Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, comments: Postnasal drip can be caused
by a number of things, including allergy. If it was diagnosed correctly as an
allergy, you did receive appropriate treatment, but maybe you didn’t get enough
of it or you need antihistamines as well. There is also immunotherapy by
injections, but at your age it will probably be much less effective because of a
weaker immune system. There is sublingual immunotherapy (medications held
under the tongue), which could be more helpful, but these are expensive and not
included in the basket of health services. You can go to your personal
physician for medications if you still have to wait to see the allergy
specialist. There are definitely things that can help you.
Rx for
Readers welcomes queries from readers about medical problems. Experts will
answer those we find most interesting.
Write Rx for Readers, The
Jerusalem Post, POB 81, Jerusalem 91000, fax your question to Judy
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