<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
People are often asking for the GF status for Pedialyte, Gatorade, nasal
sprays, etc. Similar solutions can be made at home for only pennies.
Because they are home made you can be assured they are GF. I have a few
such recipes to share. Some are from a websearch & others are recipes I've
collected through the years. I hope these help you.
If you compare these various recipes for pedialyte substitutes, you'll
notice they have a few things in common. They are mostly water with a
little bit of salt & carbohydrate added (sugar, rice starch or juice). I've
done quite a bit of reading on this subject & I've found that there is still
much disagreement on what's considered the best amount of salt & the best
carbohydrate to use (various sugars vs. rice strach, etc.). From most of my
reading, I'd guess that good results can be acheived with just about any of
these recipes. My comments will be in [brackets]. Please note that I
haven't tried all of these. I will tell you which I have tried. Near the
end, there are a couple of saline solutions for other ailments.
None of the recipes below are intended to replace medical advise.
~Valerie in Tacoma
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Juice Medicine (for diarrhea)
[This is an old family recipe given to me over 28 years ago by a woman whose
ancestors crossed the plains with the Mormon pioneers in the 1850s. I have
tried it a couple times & was pleased with the results.]
In a one quart jar, put in 1/4 teaspoon salt & 3 tablespoons fruit juice.
Fill w/ boiled water. Administer several teaspoons at a time as often as
patient can tolerate it w/o vomiting.
-----------------
[Here's a recipe I saw demonstrated on a TV program in the early 80s about
Unicef's work with mothers in third world countries. Diarrhea is the number
one killer of children world wide & this simple recipe is credited with
saving over 1 million infant lives.]
In a cooking pan put about one quart water. Stir in a two finger pinch of
salt & a three finger pinch of rice flour. Boil, cool and give sips of this
solution to sick children every minute or two as often as they can tolerate
it. [The other part of this treatment is to throw away bottles & commercial
formulas & reinstate breast feeding. Commercial formula feeding in third
world countries caused thousands of infant deaths in the 60s and 70s.]
-------------------
Homemade Pedialyte (electrolyte) recipe:
2 liters of water (pop bottle)
1 TBL sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
stir in boiling water to dissolve
[This recipe came from a website, but I'm sorry I've lost the site address.]
-------------------
Pedialyte Replacement: There are many recipes for homemade pedialyte. Here
are three.
1) 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 2 T. sugar Mix into 4 cups boiling
water
2) 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. baking soda, 7 T sugar, Mix into 2 quarts boiling
water
3) 1/8 tsp. salt, 1/8 tsp. baking soda, 2 tsp. sugar, Mix with 1 cup water;
warm
Refrigerate after cooling. Karo syrup can be substituted for the sugar. For
human kidlets and adults alike, add one packet sugar-free Koolaid and either
drink or freeze as popsicles. [This came from an internet website.
http://www.proboneo.org/HelpfulHints.htm ]
-------------------
Rice water [for diarrhea]
Boil a little bit of rice & a pinch of salt in a quart of water. Strain off
rice. Cool. Give in sips as often as child can tolerate. [Sorry I don't
have specific amounts. I used this several times when my kids were young.
I can't say that it really works because none of my four children ever had
severe vomiting or diarrhea. They always recovered very quickly from
"stomach flu." By the time I had prepared the solutions, they were well &
eating normally.]
-------------------
Nasal irrigation solution. [My doctor gave this one to me. It's obviously
not for diarrhea. It really helps when my sinuses act up.]
1 cup warm water
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
If you know the technique this can be aspirated directly into the nostrils
to remove mucous. If you don't know the technique [and I won't attempt to
teach you over the internet] you can simply put this into nostrils with a
spray bottle or a medicine dropper. Use as often as desired to remove
mucous.
--------------------
Saline for dressing wounds
1 quart water + 2 teaspoons table salt
Wash cuts & wounds with this solution. Apply saline moistened gauze
dressings directly to open wounds. If wound is infected, apply saline
moistened gauze, allow to dry then pull it off. The dead tissue &
infectious material will slough off "stuck" to the dry guaze. Repeat as
long as there is dead, infectious tissue remaining. [I usually use an
antibiotic ointment on small cuts & open wounds. It's inexpensive & usually
works great. But I have used these wet to dry saline dressings many times
with great success on large wounds. It works great. I have found that when
antibiotic ointments fail on these large scrapes & abrasions, the wet to dry
dressing can improve outcomes. I'm not recommending this instead of
seeking medical care. But I'd like to share my personal experience w/ you.]
[One time, one of my teen age sons got several abrasions on his knees &
elbows (from skate boarding w/o protection). He neglected telling me about
it until they were infected & pussy. I cleaned the wounds as thoroughly as
I could & began treating them with antibiotic ointment & sterile guaze
dressings. The infection continued & became red, swollen, painful and was
oozing pus. I made an appointment to see the doctor. I had recently
learned about wet to dry saline dressings in nursing school so decided to
try them on my son until we could get in to see the doctor. I applied the
moist saline dressing, let it dry, pulled it off (yes, he yelled!). I
repeated this several times in the next 24 hours before his appointment. By
the time we were able to see the doctor, all the signs of infection
(redness, swelling, pus, warmth) were gone & the wound was a healthy pink.
He didn't need antibiotics. This was the first time I had tried this type
of dressing on any wounds. I was amazed at the results. I've sinced seen
it work many times on nasty scrapes & burns. Please don't misunderstand.
This will not cure all skin infections. It won't get rid of impetigo. But
you may be able to use this as a stop gap measure to reduce the severity or
hasten the healing of an infected wound until you can get medical
attention.]
[I've seen moist saline dressings work miracles on some nasty large wounds.
I used to work in a nursing home. We had a elderly woman come in who had
lost all the tissue off her heal from bed sores. There was nothing left but
the heal bone & some tendons poking through. The medical director ordered
moist saline dressing round the clock. Miraculously the rotten, smelly dead
tissue that was remaining around the wound edges fell off and was soon
replaced with new pink healthy tissue! After several weeks of moist saline
dressings this woman had regrown new healthy tissue over her once exposed
heal bone. This was not an idolated case. I saw many patients in this
nursing home recover from skin ulcers & bed sores with the same kind of
treatment.]
* Please remember some posters may be WHEAT-FREE, but not GLUTEN-FREE *
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