So a couple of months back my mother in law came home from a bingo game with this strange joint pain and arthritis relief remedy – gin soaked raisins.
Ok, first let me be clear… even though I worked in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry for 20 years and believe there are many helpful drugs on the market, I DO also believe in natural remedies. Enough so that for many ailments I turn to natural before big pharma remedies.
A good example of this has resulted in this blog. A couple of years ago during one of my routine annual physicals, my doctor sent me back for another blood test (after 3 months), then another (again after 3 months) and then one more (after 3 months). Finally, after the nine months past he told me my blood sugar was trending upward. Although NOT diabetic he said I needed to watch it closely, and that I needed to do something to change it.
“Drugs or lifestyle, take your pick.” is what he said to me.
I chose “diet and exercise” over drugs. Hell, I was only (at that point) 44 – no way I wanted to start any long term drug treatment!
Ultimately, in only 3 months, when he had me do another blood test, my blood sugar was back to normal and I had dropped 10 pounds. Much had to do with the exercise I know, but also my food choices played (and still plays) a role.
So now, when my mother in law told me of this remedy, I didn’t “pooh-pooh” it. Wasn’t sure I believed it, but I didn’t dis-believe either.
So she started doing this raisin-gin thing. After a couple of weeks she swears much of her day to day aches and pains (mostly her back and hands) have mostly gone away.
I did some checking on this – heck, it’s the internet information age – and looked up “golden raisins and gin” on Google. As expected, there are a lot of results for this. Much of what I read seem to say the same things. This has never been “officially” tested in any way. Could be the placebo effect. Things like that. The general consensus of most of the sites I have read say basically while there’s no proof one way or the other, why not try (check with your doctor of course).
Heck – good enough for me. Now I have been eating these gin-soaked raisins for the past 2 weeks. I can’t say I have seen any changes yet, but keep in mind that most of the sites state anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks of daily use before you see any changes.
Additionally, even though I have a slight case of arthritis in both knees, I walk, jog or bicycle almost every day.
Will this all help my knee pain that I have carried with me since I was 13 years old? Time will tell.
In a month, I will write again (since that will be 6 weeks) and let you know what – if any – changes there have been.
Til then…
