Okay, so I’ve been meaning to share this for a while. It’s about those little cicada shells, you know, the ones they leave behind. Chan Tui, as some folks call ’em. Sounds a bit out there, right? That’s what I thought too, at first.
My First Brush with Cicada Sloughs
Honestly, I never paid them much mind before. Just crispy bug shells littering the yard every single summer. Kinda annoying, mostly, if I’m being truthful. My kid, when he was little, used to collect them, thought they were the coolest things. Me? I just saw them as something else to sweep up off the porch. Then, a few years back, my old neighbor, Mrs. Liang – bless her heart, she knew a thing or two about old-timey ways – she mentioned them. We were just having a chat over the fence, you know, complaining about the summer bugs and the heat, and she casually said something about cicada sloughs being pretty good if you had a scratchy throat or if a little one was restless and couldn’t settle. I kinda just nodded along, being polite and all, but inside I was thinking, “Yeah, right, bug shells going to do all that.”
A Bit of Digging (Not Too Deep, Mind You!)
But that little comment, it stuck with me. Mrs. Liang wasn’t the type to just talk nonsense for the sake of it. So, one lazy afternoon, I actually found myself looking it up a bit. Nothing too serious, just a quick search here and there on the internet. And what do you know? Turns out, these things have been used in traditional remedies for ages and ages, especially over in East Asia. I saw all sorts of mentions of them helping with stuff like calming your nerves, maybe even for little seizures or fevers in kids, though I wouldn’t go trying that without some real proper advice, you understand. And there was some talk about polysaccharides being a key part of what makes them work. It wasn’t like I did a super scientific deep dive, more like just scratching an itch of curiosity I had. It seemed to be less about the actual cicadas digging in the soil – which I did read they do, and apparently it helps the plants – but more specifically about these empty shells they leave behind.
Giving it a Go – My Little Experiment at Home
So, fast forward a bit. My own grandson, he was going through this real troublesome phase – super itchy skin, especially when he went to bed at night. We’d tried all the usual creams from the store, but nothing really gave him lasting relief, poor little guy. Then I remembered what Mrs. Liang had said, and some of the stuff I’d casually read online. I thought, well, what’s the harm in trying something super traditional, something really old-school, as long as it’s safe, right? I didn’t go brewing up some potent, complicated concoction or anything. I remembered reading about using it in a very mild way, sometimes just boiling a few cleaned shells in water and using that water to gently bathe an affected area, or even as a very, very mild tea for certain things (again, I was super cautious about all this!).
I decided to try the external wash method first. It felt a bit strange, I admit, going around collecting these cicada sloughs from the trees in my backyard. Made sure they were clean, of course, that was important. Here’s pretty much what I did:
- I gathered a small handful of the sloughs. Not a huge amount, just a few, maybe five or six.
- Gave them a really good rinse under cool running water. Wanted to get all the tiny bits of dirt and whatever else off them.
- Then, I gently simmered them in a small pot of plain water for about 15-20 minutes. Just enough to let whatever properties they had steep into the water, you know.
- I let it cool down completely afterwards, then I strained it through a clean cloth. The water itself was a very light, almost amber color.
What I Noticed, or Thought I Noticed
So, I used this water as a gentle wash on my grandson’s itchy spots right before he went to bed. Didn’t expect any miracles, obviously. But you know what? Over the next few days, he definitely seemed less bothered by the itching. He wasn’t scratching himself raw as much during the night. Now, was it the cicada slough water for sure? Was it just a coincidence, or him growing out of it? Honestly, who can say for certain. It wasn’t like some magic overnight cure, nothing like that. But it did seem to offer some kind of soothing effect, at least to my eyes. I didn’t try making him drink any of it, mind you. Just that gentle skin wash. We continued doing it for about a week, and his skin did clear up considerably better than it had with just the creams alone. Maybe it was the combination of things, maybe it was just time. But it felt pretty good to try something so rooted in old ways, something so simple and natural.
Look, I’m not sitting here telling everyone they should run out and start boiling up cicada shells. And definitely not for any serious medical conditions – you always, always see a doctor for that kind of stuff. But my little experience, it really made me think. Sometimes these old remedies, the ones passed down through generations, they might just have a bit of wisdom in them, even if we don’t fully understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ with all our modern science all the time. It was a little journey of discovery for me, that’s for sure, starting from just brushing off bug shells as a nuisance to actually finding a gentle, practical use for them in my own home. It just goes to show, sometimes the simplest things, the ones right under our noses (or hanging on our trees!), can hold a surprise or two if we’re open to it.
