Home remedies · Stomach, gut & nausea
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.
Filled to hand warmth, wrapped in a cloth, applied for 20 to 30 minutes.
Warmth relaxes the smooth muscle of gut and womb and dampens pain transmission. For period and cramping pain this is well established.
Warmth eases cramp, it does not clarify a cause — and it does not help inflammatory pain.
Not on a belly with strong, increasing pain or a hard abdominal wall — with appendicitis warmth is unfavourable. Not directly on the skin and not while asleep, especially with reduced sensation.
Do not treat yourself: strong, increasing or suddenly starting abdominal pain, a hard belly, blood in the stool or black stool, vomiting blood. With diarrhoea it is fluid loss that counts — dry tongue, little urine, drowsiness. In children and older people this happens faster.