Sleeping With Wet Hair Can Cause Blindness and Other Absurdities

My grandmother has this funny and bizarre collection of health ideas that I do not know whether some of it is true – but I’m sure most of it are just local absurdities. Maybe it is because of information deficiency and the belief in albularyo or local quack doctor.

These health beliefs always remind me what it was like to grow up in the province, fascinated and horrified by the adult world. Right now, it is really reassuring that the things I used to believe weren't so strange after all because I discovered that, somehow, most provinces across the Philippines, and even other countries, also have their own or same health legends. And the most common – sleeping with wet hair can cause blindness.

Then again, even communities in Metro Manila and other cities, especially urban poor communities, still believe on these health legends. Although city people have access to electricity and the mass media, much of their health information can be misleading inaccurate or distorted.

These beliefs are really amusing so I take time on finding little facts about it by doing a little research to satisfy my itchy curiosity. I’m not an expert in medicine and my notes are still subject to medical scrutiny.

Here are some of the popular health-beliefs in our town in Mindoro and my personal notes:  

1. Sleeping with wet hair can cause blindness - In our province, it is said that if you sleep with wet hair, first you will be cross-eyed, then you will go blind. Meaning, if you happen to wake up in the middle of your sleep with your wet hair, you will only be crossed eyed – and you know what, you are considered lucky -- because if you sleep longer you will be blind.

• My Notes: According to John C Hagan III, MD, an Ophthalmologist affiliated with the American Academy of Ophthalmology, that belief is totally untrue. There is no connection what-so-ever between wet hair and eye problems. Why would you want to sleep with wet hair anyway? 

2. Urine of frogs causes warts or kulugo – Kokak Kokak! No way. I love playing with frogs when I was a kid, what I got are bruises from chasing them – not warts. 

• My Notes: The cause of the typical wart is not a frog. It happens because the wart virus finds a body with a weak immune system.

3. Eating too much magoes can cause bungang-araw or prickly heat rashes – I’m not really sure about this one. What I personally experience is that I got itchy lips and throat when I accidentally ate a portion of that pico mango fruit rind. Despite the fact that mango can be allergic to a few people, it is still a healthy fruit and I cannot help myself eating this fruit – especially those overripe big kinalabaw mangoes, hmm yummy.

• My Notes: Well, the problem is that mango tree sap, and the rind of the fruit, contains urushiol, the same chemical the poison ivy plant produces. Some people experience skin rashes especially in the lips upon contact with the sap or the skins of the fruit. Well, you can’t be that hungry that you want to eat even the mango skin – that’s reserved for the backyard pigs you know.    

4. Eating grilled lizard can cure asthma - The usual practice is to grill a lizard until it turned to charcoal black, grind it then mix it to some juice or coffee so you can't taste what a lizard really taste like. Others just add a whole lizard when cooking rice. Yaikks!

• My Notes: Some experts say that asthma can not be cured. Of course eating lizard is not based on a prescription or medical advice, but at least they believe in alternative medicine. We just really don’t know its medicinal effects though. In the meantime, I suggest we should require all lizards to have them labeled with “No approved therapeutic claims.” - until such time that a proper study was conducted. Any objections, Godzilla?   

5. Washing hands after ironing clothes can cause pasma - Pasma refers to a folk illness unique to the Filipino culture with symptoms of hand tremors, sweaty palms, numbness and pains attributed to an interaction of "init" (heat) and "lamig" (cold).

A rather amusing variation on this belief is the idea that condoms cause "pasma" allegedly because the rubber aggravates the body’s heat. Ha ha ha, Maybe an impotent Catholic priest, who is fighting against contraceptives and the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill, started this rumor. LOL  

• My Notes: Pasma is not described in medical textbooks, discussed in medical schools, or generally recognized by contemporary medical science.

6. A lady eating twin bananas will give birth to twins - Eating twin fruits like double almonds and bananas were thought to increase the likelihood of twins.

• My Notes: None – I don’t bother googling this one, because obviously, this is ridiculous. Just consult your local manghihilot to explain this to you in detail or perhaps try visiting the psychic readers in Quiapo if you want more information.

7. Brushing hair 100 times before bedtime can make it softer and shiny - This is the old tale, which claims that brushing your hair a lot, 100 to 200 strokes a day, is good for the hair.

• My Notes: According to the basic hair care article posted in Mercury Drug Website, we have about 100,000 strands of hairs on our head. Each grows for two to six years. It's normal to shed some 50 to 100 hair strands a day. When hair falls out, a new strand eventually replaces it.
• Their Advise: Don't put strain on your hair strands by brushing too much or too vigorously. The story about brushing your hair 100 times a night is not true. Overbrushing the hair simply makes it brittle and may cause the scalp to produce excess oil.

8. Eating ants can improve singing - So finally, Celine Dion and Charice Pempemco’s secret is finally out. Sautéed ants are behind their angelic singing voice? Well, if it’s true, Willie Revillame and Paris Hilton should’ve done that two decades ago so that they wouldn’t have to be a trying hard singer.

• My Notes: Maybe an old lunatic singer, during one of her epileptic seizures, started sharing her secret about eating ants to improve her voice, her die-hard fans heard her – and from there, the legend goes. Z and Princess Bala will not love this. 

9. Drinking seawater can cure cough/colds - In our province in Mindoro, whenever we got cough, my mother will let us have our sea swimming early in the morning and would encourage us to take a gulp of seawater to cure our cough. Of course seawater in our small town is really clear and clean unlike the yukkiiee toxic Manila Bay.

But wait, based on my fact finding spree, this one, which I thought was also an absurd belief is amazingly has some truth in it. Well at least I found out that not all beliefs in my list are just absurdities.

• My Notes: According to a Czech research [Efficacy of Isotonic Nasal Wash (Seawater) in the Treatment and Prevention of Rhinitis in Children], seawater spray cures kids colds. It may be that the salt water has a simple mechanical effect of clearing mucus, or it could be that trace elements in the water play some more significant role, though the exact reason why such a solution works is not known, said Dr. Ivo Slapak and colleagues at the Teaching Hospital of Brno in the Czech Republic.   

I’m sure you also know of some health myths – like jumping on New Year’s eve to make you taller?

Hmmm, what else…
Please share what you have in mind in the comments section below.  

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Sources: Retrieved 16 April 2010 by YODZ INSIGNE

» Hagan, John C. III, MD, “Eye Care” 
»Tichenal Allan, Dobbs Joannie “How to Avoid Mangoes Itch”
»Suvamita Ghosh “Mango Allergy”
»Tan, Michael. Philippine Daily Inquirer “Pasma”
»Conlon, Michael Seawater spray cures kids colds-Czech researchers Jan 21 (Reuters) 
»Ivo Slapak et. al., Efficacy of Isotonic Nasal Wash (Seawater) in the Treatment and Prevention of Rhinitis in Children
»Mercury Drug. Basic Hair Care

Filipino Lotus Feet Mentality – Sacrificing comfort over fashion

Most Filipinos are proud of sacrificing comfort in the name of style and social acceptance. They embrace the total nonsense view of “style” and being “in” to counter the modern embarrassment of being unfashionable or jologs, sacrificing their comfort in the name of conformity, sacrificing health and commonsense and accept the fullness of Dra. Vicky Belo’s definition of beauty.

Yes, most Filipinos are now living a material world, they say if you ignore that privilege, you missed the whole point of human existence.

…but I beg to disagree.

Like the Chinese girl called Lotus Feet, in the horror film Feng Sui, they will never escape the fire due to their walking handicap.

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Photo Source: thetoyzone.com

Filipino Catholics in the Eyes of Foreigners

Here's something very positive written by a foreigner named Steve Ray, about Filipinos. Steve Ray authored many best-selling books, among which are, Crossing The Tiber (his conversion story), Upon This Rock (on the papacy), and just recently John's Gospel (a comprehensive bible study guide and commentary).

STEVE RAY'S OPEN LETTER TO THE FILIPINO CATHOLICS:

We stepped into the church and it was old and a bit dark. Mass had just begun and we sat toward the front. We didn't know what to expect here in Istanbul , Turkey. I guess we expected it to be a sombre Mass but quiet and sombre it was not - I thought I heard angels joyously singing behind me.

The voices were rich, melodic and beautiful. What I discovered as I spun around to look did not surprise me because I had seen and heard the same thing in other churches around the world. It was not a choir of angels with feathered wings and halos but a group of delightful Filipino Catholics with smiles of delight and joy on their faces as they worshiped God and sang His praises. I had seen this many times before in Rome , in Israel ,in the United States and other countries.

Filipinos have special traits and they are beautifully expressed as I gazed at the happy throng giving thanks to God. What are the special traits which characterize these happy people? I will share a few that I have noticed- personal observations- as I have travelled around the world, including visits to the Philippines

FIRST, there is a sense of community, of family. These Filipino Christians did not sit apart from each other in different isles. They sat together, closely. They didn't just sing quietly, mumbling, or simply mouthing the words. No, they raised their voices in harmony together as though they enjoyed the sense of unity and communion among them. They are family even if they are not related.

SECOND, they have an inner peace and joy which is rare in the world today. When most of the world's citizens are worried and fretful, I have found Filipinos to have joy and peace - a deep sense of God's love that over shadows them. They have problems too, and many in the Philippines have less material goods than others in the world, yet there is still a sense of happy trust in God and love of neighbour.

THIRD, there is a love for God and for his Son Jesus that is almost synonymous with the word Filipino. There is also something that Filipinos are famous for around the world - their love for the Blessed Mother. Among the many Filipinos I have met, the affectionate title for Mary I always hear from their lips is "Mama Mary." For these gentle folks Mary is not just a theological idea, a historical person, or a statue in a church - Mary is the mother of their Lord and their mother as well, their "mama."

The Philippines is a Catholic nation-the only such nation in Asia –and this wonderful country exports missionaries around the world. They are not hired to be missionaries, not official workers of the church. No, they are workers and educators, doctors, nurses and housekeepers that go to other lands and travel to the far reaches of the earth, and everywhere they go they take the joyous gospel of Jesus with them. They make a sombre Mass joyful when they burst into song. They convict the pagan of sin as they always keep the love of Jesus and the Eucharist central in their lives.

My hope and prayer, while I am here in the Philippines sharing my conversion story from Baptist Protestant to Roman Catholic, is that the Filipino people will continue to keep these precious qualities. I pray that they will continue loving their families, loving the Catholic Church, reading the Bible, loving Jesus, His Mother and the Eucharist.

As many other religions and sects try to persuade them to leave the Church, may God give the wisdom to defend the Catholic faith. As the world tempts them to sin and seek only money and fame and power, may God grant them the serenity to always remember that obedience to Christ and love for God is far more important than all the riches the world can offer.

May the wonderful Filipino people continue to be a light of the Gospel to the whole world!

Be a proud Filipino.