So, out on an Easter egg hunt today 🐣🍫, my son came back with his dad looking slightly sorry for himself, hand in pocket. He had been stung by a stinging nettle 🌿😖

“Did you get a nice big dock leaf?” my mum asked.

I nodded along, assuming that to be the case.

“What’s a dock leaf?” my husband replied.

Mum and I looked at each other in disbelief, as if he had just told us he could not tell left from right. I was convinced he must be joking. I looked at him again, but he seemed genuinely puzzled. Apparently describing it as “green and long” did nothing to help.

I sometimes forget that while I grew up in the rural Westcountry, my husband grew up in London. Still, dock leaves feel like one of those things everyone just knows.

Or at least, I thought they did.

Because of all the “evidence” that they treat nettle stings.

Except, when you actually look into it, there is very little evidence that dock leaves actually help nettle stings. Dock leaves grow near nettles because they thrive in similar soil conditions. They may feel cooling when applied, but there is nothing particularly medicinal about them. It is not a natural antidote. It is simply convenient.

And there I was, after spending an entire month talking about medical myths, casually reinforcing one of the most obvious ones without a second thought 🤦‍♀️ https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122163252038662779&set=a.122108181518662779

It made me think.  How many things do I accept as fact without ever really questioning them?

There are plenty of old wives’ tales when it comes to treating minor ailments. Some are harmless, some less so. I find myself particularly frustrated during tick season 🕷️, when well-meaning advice can be more problematic than helpful. But beyond those obvious examples, there are also practices we assume are grounded in science simply because they are routine.

In healthcare, especially, repetition can very quickly become truth.

One of the clearest examples of this for me is tubigrip.

When I first started as a staff nurse, a significant part of my time in minors was spent applying tubigrip to ankles and knees. It was part of the process. Patients expected it, and if I am honest, I found it oddly satisfying to apply using those large metal applicators. There was something reassuring about it. It felt like you were doing something tangible to help.

Then one day, it was gone.

We came into work and there was no tubigrip. No announcement, no clear explanation. It had simply disappeared.

At the time, I had never really questioned why we used it. It was simply what we did. But when it was taken away, that was a different matter entirely. Patients noticed. Staff noticed. It felt like something had been removed without justification, and it felt unsettling.

Eventually, the reasoning filtered through. Tubigrip does not cause harm, but it does not significantly improve healing either. And within a system like the NHS, that matters. If something does not provide clear benefit, it is difficult to justify the cost.

So practice shifted.

RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) became RIE. Patients did not like it, but over time it became the new normal. Like many changes in healthcare, what initially feels uncomfortable gradually becomes accepted.

And now, practice has evolved again.

Well now the current guidance has moved us from RIE on to PEACE and LOVE ❤️

(Protection, Elevation, Avoid anti-inflammatories, Compression, Education.  Followed by Load, Optimism, Vascularisation and Exercise)

Once again, I realised I had accepted this change without really questioning it. It had been introduced, explained briefly, and absorbed into practice.

But today, I found myself stopping to question.

Surely there has not been a sudden explosion of new, definitive evidence about compression bandaging?

Curious, I looked into it further and even asked ChatGPT, which summed it up simply:

“Some people like a support bandage, but it won’t speed healing.”

In other words, compression may offer comfort and a sense of support for some patients, but it does not necessarily change the underlying healing process. It helps people feel supported, but it is not a magic solution.

Which brings us neatly back to where we started.

Full circle 🔄

We were not entirely wrong before, and we are not entirely different now.

It raises an uncomfortable but important thought. How much of what we do is truly evidence-based, and how much sits in that grey space between habit, experience and evolving guidance?

Healthcare is constantly changing, and rightly so. Evidence develops, practice evolves, and we adapt. But there is also a quieter truth underneath that. Not every change represents a complete shift in understanding. Sometimes, it is a refinement. Sometimes, it is a rebalancing of what we already knew.

And sometimes, it simply highlights how easily we accept something as fact because it is familiar.

So maybe there is still hope for the humble dock leaf after all 🌿

At the very least, today has been a useful reminder that even in healthcare, not everything we accept as fact has been fully interrogated. Some things persist because they are convenient, familiar, or simply because they feel right.

And perhaps the real lesson is not about dock leaves or tubigrip at all, but about curiosity.  About being willing to ask that question and look again, even when something feels obvious.

Either way, at least now I do not feel completely out of date on current treatments… today anyway 😅 and my husband still can’t identify a dock leaf.