Home remedies · Back, muscles & joints
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Roll white cabbage leaves until juice appears, lay them around the joint, fix with a cloth, for one or several hours or overnight.
The compress cools moistly and applies light pressure. For knee osteoarthritis there are small studies describing relief — the evidence is thin, but not empty.
It does not change the joint; the effect ends with the compress.
Not on broken skin. A suddenly hot, red, very painful joint should not be waited out — that can be joint infection and needs seeing the same day.
Have it assessed rather than treated at home: back pain with numbness in the saddle area, disturbed bladder or bowel function, weakness or fever. A joint that cannot bear weight after an injury, or is deformed. A one-sided swollen, warm leg.