Air date: October 11, 2009

Host: Barbara Lewis

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Interview: Eric Metcalf, essayist

Years ago, I worked for a publishing company that specialized in books of home remedies. The editors were always urging us to find novel remedies, typically for run-of-the-mill problems like heartburn, that the reader had never heard about.

The more exotic the suggestion, the better. Don't tell people to take aspirin. They already know that. But it's OK to tell them to brew a cup of willow-bark tea, which contains similar ingredients. And the recommendations had to be actionable, meaning people would actually be willing to do them.

I'm bringing all this up because I think handling your medical problems on your own is going to become an important aspect of health care. When the dust settles in a few years and the American health care system is in whatever shape it turns into, I'm pretty sure that, number 1., we're going to be personally responsible for paying for much more of our health care; and number 2., we're going to become less interested in throwing tons of expensive -- and unnecessary -- tests and treatments at our problems; and number 3., we'll be more interested in dealing with problems on our own instead of expecting a doctor fix them.

One of the remedies I wrote about was the Neti pot. At the time, this was very exotic. A Neti pot is like a small watering can that you fill with salt water. You pour the water into one nostril, and it comes out the other. It sounded helpful, so I ordered one. As it turns out, using a Neti pot is pretty uncomfortable the first time or two. You have a lot of internal ductwork linking your nose, sinuses, ears, mouth and, I don't know, spleen. The water flows around inside your head into weird places, and it feels like you're undergoing one of those "harsh interrogation techniques" you hear about lately.

But man, it sure can open up your sinuses and clean out any gunk you're keeping in there. And it becomes more enjoyable after you get used to the sensation and learn how to hold your head to control the flow of the water. This type of nasal irrigation is being studied by more and more researchers. A 2007 study that compiled the results of previous research found that washing out your nasal passages with salt water can be helpful for sinus symptoms when used with other treatments or even alone.

In early 2009, another home remedy -- this time for eczema -- made the news. In this study, some kids with eczema bathed in plain water, and others took short baths twice weekly with a small amount of bleach in the bathwater. Kids in the bleach group had more improvements in their eczema severity. As a side benefit, they probably also got out some of those set-in stains.

I'm hoping that our new health care system encourages people to use more simple, self-care methods that are scientifically proven to work. But maybe I'm just thinking about myself.

The past few years, I've gotten away from home remedy books, and I've spent more time writing about more mainstream, high-tech treatments for diseases. I'm sure DPP-IV inhibitors and carotid endarterectomies and the other new drugs and latest surgeries will always have their place in the future, but home remedies are almost always easier to spell.

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