https://preview.redd.it/i4j4exj7t8hd1.jpeg?width=324&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8cffb1dd0706aae617ada284856059c05251be54
This was our cure all. Bottle we used had to have been 10+ years old.
My grandmother called this “monkey blood” and it scared the daylights out of me. I thought the manufacturers held monkeys down and drew all their blood. It was likely the early/mid 80s but I’m certain I’d seen a photo of chimps in cages for medical purposes. Also sure I tasted it once and it made my tongue numb for the rest of the day.
Damn, I really hated that woman.
Monkey blood is a different medicine that is actually red in color.
[https://www.retroist.com/p/monkeys-blood-mercurochrome-for-those-boo-boos](https://www.retroist.com/p/monkeys-blood-mercurochrome-for-those-boo-boos)
I remember so many kids in my elementary school had these bright reddish orange scabs and I always thought how bad and painful it looked. I thought this for years until I was told it was this stuff. My mom never used it. Just classic peroxide
I remember not wanting to tell my dad when I got a splinter because I knew his treatment consisted of 3 things. Needle, tweezers, mercuruchrome. The tweezers is the only one that didn't hurt like a bitch.
If you’re in the US, closer to 20+. [Distribution was halted in 1998.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merbromin)
I miss that stuff. There’s alternatives that aren’t quite as good.
I don't remember using this for chicken pox but we probably did. I do remember using it for the poison Ivy my brothers and I would get multiple times a year.
When I was about 5 or 6 at kindergarten my little girlfriend and I found some poison ivy growing back by the fence. We decided it would be a good idea to rub the leaves all over our entire bodies.
I was slathered in that stuff for several days but was of course still absolutely miserable.
I suppose my penchant for impulsive, terrible decisions started way back then.
I've got it so many times as a kid I lost count. Sometimes bad. We were constantly playing in the woods and in creeks etc. My mom would make a hot "bleach bath" and we would soak in that. Seemed to dry it out pretty fast. The worst I've seen is my brother mowed over a bunch when he was about 10 years old. He had it so bad it swelled his eyes shut. I've had it bad everywhere and I mean everywhere.
When I was about 5 or 6 at kindergarten my little girlfriend and I found some poison ivy growing back by the fence. We decided it would be a good idea to rub the leaves all over our entire bodies.
I was slathered in that stuff for several days but was of course still absolutely miserable.
I suppose my penchant for impulsive, terrible decisions started way back then.
I just learned a few years ago that there's a Chicken Pox vaccine. I guess I never really thought about how I didn't know any kids that got chicken pox any more. The most embarrassing thing is that I have 3 kids that probably all got the vaccine and I didn't even know it.
Lol bro I was supervising a group of interns, all young adults, and one of them asked me what the scar on my forehead was from. When I said chicken pox they all started laughing at me. He said "what are you, 100 years old?!?"
I didn't even know there was a vaccine.
as someone who is allergic to mosquito bites and had highly reactive/sensitive skin as a child, my god does this bring back memories. my legs were always dotted with pink all summer. i still remember the sensation of putting this on a cotton ball and applying it to my bites/rashes.
My legs still have all the scars from scratching. I have ADHD. Scratching releases dopamine. Dopamine good. Scratch till I bleed. Damn. Now my legs look lol I have leprosy
Holy shit! You’ve flipped a switch in my brain aS to WHY my daughter scratches her eczema until it’s bloody. Thank you!! It’s the hereditary ADHD/ dopamine deficiency. I did the same with poison oak. Thank you!
Measles make you bumpy
And mumps’ll make you lumpy
And chicken pox’ll make you jump and twitch
A common cold’ll fool ya
And whooping cough’ll cool ya
But poison ivy, Lord’ll make you itch!
You’re gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion
Poison Ivy by The Coasters
I think so, especially if you had older solidly Gen X siblings and your parents raised you the same way they were. I was born in ‘84 and vividly remember slathering this stuff on as a kid in the 90s.
I can also attest to this. I've had poison ivy basically from the beginning of May until the end of July. I'm actually rash free for once and it feels great. I was starting to lose my mind.
It fucking sucks. It’s somewhere in my yard and I can’t figure out where. I found one patch that my girlfriend removed for me (she’s not allergic, like at all) but I still kept getting it. So now I have to wear long pants, and spandex sport arm sleeves and gloves when I mow the lawn or do any yard work. I thought I was going to pass out Monday in 90° humidity mowing. But hey, I didn’t get poison ivy again so I guess I’ll take it!
I feel you , I love gardening and ive never gotten it until this summer.... I found some but scoured the whole property because I have a 5 yr old nephew.... but screw the gardening.... im growing everything inside from now on 😅😅
I remember this bottle well. My brothers got bit all the time, the biting bugs left me alone, and my mother would slather them in it with cotton balls. I’m a 1979 as well…definitely belongs here.
No this goes here. Every time I had a bad mosquito bite my mom would pull this stuff out. It was this for itchiness and Mercurochrome for everything else.
A friend of mine never used calamine lotion in her household. She always thought it was something that only White people needed to use. We had a really good laugh when I told her it was for poison ivy and mosquito bites.
Im using the exact same brand, exact same look right now for some poison ivy (the bottle at my moms house says it expired in 1994). It seems to be working, so why not?
You’d have to zoom in on the image to see it’s about calamine lotion since the word ‘calamine’ only appears next to the word ‘Benedryl’. You’re not using one of those braille keyboards are you? I’d hate to be insensitive.
Fuck that shit. Chicken pox is how I found out I was allergic to calamine. Hives on top of chicken pox for the first two weeks of first grade. Again, fuck that shit.
Calamine lotion. Lovely stuff.
My kids both had chickenpox on separate occasions. So I did what my parents did for me and slathered them in calamine.
It's rather funny to see a child with black skin covered in calamine. Lots of ghost jokes ensued. Not something I thought about before we got to this point.
I was covered in this shit when I stepped on a yellow jackets nest when I was about 5. I still remember being stripped to nothing and smothered in this stuff. Least we found out that I wasn't allergic to bees.
My grandparents had stuff from the 1960s in their bathrooms when we cleaned out their house after they died.
Including old Lysol, when it was still used as an abortifacient then.
I’m allergic to Benadryl, as well. Now I know to avoid caladryl.
Found out about the time I suddenly became allergic to fish as a teenager.
Also iodine and gadolinium-based products like certain contrast dyes hospitals use. The latter was especially fun to discover…
Wait, what else are you supposed to use? I get bad bites and keep me some Caladryl in my first aid cabinet! The hydrocortisone cream does NOT hit the same
I think people were using this as a mattifying makeup primer not that long ago. Internet trends are weird. I don’t know if it works for that but it helps with bug bites!
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