13 Comments
Mar 19Liked by Dr. Jen Gunter

"Just because people used something medicinally thousands of years ago doesn’t mean it has the ascribed medicinal properties" This! Social media platforms should be mandated to add this warning to all influencers grifting these products.

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It would be a good warning label!

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Thank you for this! I used a recipe that I found in a popular herbal book for pregnancy for Castor oil with orange juice and vodka to induce labour 26 years ago. I was already 42+weeks pregnant and having on and off labour pains, so no idea if the castor oil worked, BUT, I would recommend it if you would like hemorrhoids along with the episostomy or vaginal tear, and I have never ordered vodka and orange juice at a bar since.

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OMG

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Ditto for castor oil for eyelash growth.

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not surprising!

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Thanks for this! I got fooled about a year and a half ago but just trashed it after my n-of-1 came up short. What actually does work for hair growth? Eyelash and head.

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I went to a naturopathic practitioner for a perimenopause consultation and when she advised castor oil packs as a way to reduce my fibroids and said she had success with other patients with this, I knew she was peddling BS and I was not wasting anymore money with her.

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Yes, this idea that castor oil can somehow dissolve fibroids is especially strange!

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Thanks for this! Could you also talk about other oils and things that people suggest? I'm thinking in particular coconut oil for vaginal and vulvar hydration and as an aid to stop yeast infections and BV that are more likely during menopause. Thank you!

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It's amazing the things people come up with . . . Castor oil certainly works well as a laxative and having worked with various midwives my experience with it was as an aid to inducing labor at term. A few of my patients tried it with very unpersuasive results, plus it tastes awful.

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I'm a labor nurse, and we actually had to use terbutaline on a patient who was in tachysystole due to castor oil! I know that's kind of a fringe reaction but it really stuck with me, especially since I myself had used it for labor induction!

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Didn‘t work for my mother when she was postdates with me and my sister…but she agreed it tasted awful and gave her stomach pains, helped her chronic constipation a bit….we both came out when we were good and ready (this was in the dark ages when there was no induction for postdates)

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