Ask ‘Dr. Ozzy’: Notorious rocker offers medical advice

As the fabled former front-man of heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath, a formidably infamous performer and the beloved patriarch of reality TV’s “The Osbournes,” Ozzy Osbourne has traveled a path wrought with myriad highs and lows. Who better, then, to pen a book providing consultation for those seeking medical advice? In “Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy,” one of rock’s tireless survivors does just that. Here’s an excerpt.

You’ll Never Be Ill Again . . . Probably
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as Dr. Ozzy, it’s that everyone wants to be cured immediately—or better yet, three days ago. Luckily for the people who come to me with their problems, I’m exactly the same way. I mean, why go to all the trouble of a low-carb diet, if you can get rid of your gut with a needle and a suction pump? Or why take it easy after an injury, when you can pop a few pain pills and carry on? As far as I can tell, there’s only one drawback to quick fixes: THEY DON’T F__KING WORK. Either that, or they sort out whatever’s bothering you, but create another ten problems along the way. Take sleeping pills. For years I had trouble getting any shut-eye, so I started using a popular brand of sleeping medication. Before I knew it, I’d forgotten everything since 1975. The trouble was, my body built up an immunity to the drugs so quickly, I ended up necking a whole jar of the stuff just to get five minutes of rest. That’s when my memory blackouts started, along with a bunch of other crazy side-effects, like wandering around the house stark naked at two in the morning. What I should have done was find out why I wasn’t sleeping—maybe something was making me anxious— and gone after the cause, not the symptom. But it’s human nature, isn’t it? We’re all tempted by the cheap ’n’ easy botch job, even though we know it ain’t gonna last. That’s why I’ve dedicated this chapter to “instant” cures: urban myths, old wives’ tales, and unlikely stories I’ve picked up on the road . . . Some of them have worked for me in the past. Others are bulls__t. I’ll let you decide which is which.

Grand Central Publishing

Dear Dr. Ozzy:
What’s the best cure for a hangover, in your (considerable) experience?
Justin, London
This is an easy one: have another pint. You’ll be feeling much better in no time. It took me 40 years of trying everything and anything to make the morning-after feel better— short of actually giving up booze— until I finally realised that the only thing that ever worked was just to get s__tfaced again. Like a lot of things, it was obvious in hindsight.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:
Help! I’ve got a cold. How can I get rid of it ASAP?
Tony, Boston
Funnily enough, getting loaded is also a great cure for the common cold. For example, I used to have this magic recipe for a “Hot Ozzy” (as I used to call it). You take two pints of whiskey, boil it up on the stove, add a bit of lemon—it’s very important, the lemon—then drink it as quickly as you can. Trust me: by the time you’ve downed a Hot Ozzy, you won’t just have forgotten you’re ill, you’ll have forgotten your own name.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I’ve been told that the easiest way to treat athlete’s foot is to pee on your toes— because the chemical in anti-fungal cream (urea) can also be found in urine. Does this work?
Pierre, Ipswich
I don’t know. Back in the eighties, though, I used to deal with athlete’s foot by pouring cocaine on my toes. They cut the stuff with so much foot powder in those days, it was the best treatment you could find if you had an outbreak on the road, away from your local chemist’s. The only problem was the price: it worked out at about three grand a toe. If I’d known about the peeing thing, I might have saved myself some cash.

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Dear Dr. Ozzy:
What’s the best way to get over jet-lag— quickly?
James, Toronto
They say that if you line the insides of your shoes with brown paper, it cures jet-lag. Unfortunately, like a lot of things people say, it’s bollocks. In reality, there’s only thing that’ll stop your body clock getting messed up, and it’s called staying at f__king home.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:
What’s the best cure for “seasonal affective disorder”? I get incredibly depressed every year before the clocks go forward, but I can’t afford to move to the Florida Keys.
Felicity, Doncaster
All you need is a bit of heat and light. If you can’t afford a plane ticket, I’m not sure what to suggest, apart from setting your house on fire— which obviously ain’t a very clever idea.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,
A doctor in Italy says he can cure cancer patients by giving them baking soda. What’s your opinion?
Chris (no address given)
A friend of mine got cancer a few years ago and didn’t want to go through any of the conventional treatments, so he spent months doing all the dead cat voodoo stuff— and now the poor bloke’s dead. Obviously, I ain’t gonna criticise anyone in that position, ’cos if you’ve been told you’ve only got weeks to live, you’re gonna do whatever you think you need to do. But baking power? You’re fixing a tumour, not a cupcake. Also, if it really worked, wouldn’t baking powder be in short supply by now? Personally, my rule of thumb is that if some whacky new treatment sounds too good to be true, it is.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,
According to my great-aunt, nine white raisins, soaked in one tablespoon of gin for two weeks, will get rid of arthritis. Is this right?
Phil, Luton
The Osbourne family has the same recipe, passed down through the generations. In our version, though, there’s only one white raisin, and it’s soaked in nine bottles of gin, for two minutes. It’s great for pretty much anything.

Reprinted from "Trust Me, I'm Dr. Ozzy" by Ozzy Osbourne © 2011 by Ozzy Osbourne. Used with permission of the publisher, Grand Central Publishing, a division of the Hachette Book Group.