A Hmong Remedy Myth
Posted on 19 April 2010
One of the weirdest Hmong remedy myth I’ve heard is that when an individual sprang their wrist, ankle or just any joint on their body, it is good to ask a pregnant lady to massage the sprang joint, if the pregnant lady uses her saliva to massage that joint, it’ll help even more. Weird right??
I find this myth quite true. I remember when I was in elementary school, I had sprung my ankle at school and it had been hurting for days (I could hardly walk), so my mom took me to a pregnant cousin of mine, I sat outside her apartment door (it was more of a condo, good thing her neighbor was my aunt) she sat inside her house, she started to massage my foot and then she of course used her saliva to massage the painful area. She then asked me to wash my leg and massaged it some more. The next day I was able to walk normally again still with a bit of pain, but better than the day before. It was like magic!!!
So just yesterday while I was in Helen bbqing with some friends, I jammed my right thumb while playing volleyball, I honestly do not know how it happened but it did. Instead of stopping when the pain first started, I continued to play for a few more games, then we stopped to have lunch, then I watched a few more games and joined the guys once again. The pain had gotten worst, but I kept ignoring the pain and continue to play until our last game (although I suck at volleyball, I was just a filler, my friend said I was just there to look pretty, I was the only girl in the court, it was an all guys game, they pretty much kicked us girls out because we were horrible). Anyways, each time I hit the ball, my hand started hurting more but I kept ignoring it until the very last game.
When we were getting ready to clean up, I finally paid more attention to my hand and notice around my whole right thumb it was all purple, that was when I started to freak out. Christ told me I’ll need to put ice on it although it was already too late (and stupid me, I didn’t bother putting ice on my hand), and then Xe was there, the only pregnant lady there so she started to massaged my hand, boy was it painful!
So today, Xe (the pregnant lady) massaged my hand with the Green Smelly Asian Medicine as I called it and after she massaged my hand, it started to feel so much better!! I had the medicine on me the whole day, but I was still in so much pain. After Xe massaged it, it started to feel much better and half of my hand was less swollen. Once I got home, had dinner, my pregnant aunt came over and I had gotten her to massage my hand as well. Lets hope by tomorrow it’ll feel so much better and be less purple and less swollen so I can take this huge bandage off my hand!
8 responses to A Hmong Remedy Myth
Humm, that’s a first for me.
Lasia, test it out to see what happens for you, see if your outcome is the same as mine! LOL
Lol, that’s too funny. There must be some sort of medicine property in the saliva, you know animals lick their own wound and healed.
Nye, it somehow does work, my arm is all better now! But I do agree, animals lick their wounds to heal it, very interesting
Agree! I’ve sprained my ankles plenty of times and it has worked.
Lovely, I had sprang my ankles a few times too and it works each time.
I’ll keep that in mind. If I ever sprang a part of my body, I’ll be sure to find a pregnant women.
Let’s keep it with only the ankle and wrist please.