<<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 --------------------------------------- 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 *