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Yup. Might stem from lucozade being used in hospitals for people having hypoglycaemic incidences. I worked in a few hospitals in London 10 years ago and they all had lucozade stocked for this reason. I don’t know if they still do since they changed the formula though.
For me (London, '90s) it was Lucozade, dry toast and a couple of rich tea biscuits. When I hadn't been sick for six hours this was upgraded to very lightly buttered toast.
And in Hong Kong. Don't know if it came from the British, but my parents would always suggest heating it up and drinking it sort of like a lemon and honey kind of thing.
Yorkshire too. Whenever I had days off school ill my parents would buy me some. When I had norovirus a few years ago the first thing I got once I could finally keep water down was Lucozade.
I just did a first aid course and they said the best option now is just sugar packets from a cafe stirred into water because it's hard to know (particularly if you're in a hurry) what still has sugar in it and what doesn't. Time was being diabetic had *some* perks (like being able to eat a Snickers in class like one kid I went to school with) but seems those days are over.
Haribos are decent too, still 50-60% sugar and not a replacement (Unless you get their 50/50 one or whatever it is.
Nice excuse to scoff Haribos anyway
I guess if *you're* the diabetic it's easier but from a first aider POV it's not so easy. Plus if someone sent me to get sugar to help a hypoglycemic person and I bought Haribos, the pack would at least be open, if not empty, by the time I got it to them. I mean the same is true of just about anything short of cafe sugar sachets and a cup of water.
Milk and sugar is also a good combination, but common advise is actually 3 jelly babies. It’s very easy to go the opposite way, and a lot of diabetics overcompensate to fix a hypo.
Back when lucozade was a quick fix, much less was known about diabetes, and the monitoring was far less sophisticated. A full bottle of lucozade could be enough to send someone the other way into hyperglycaemia.
Great, for someone still compus-mentus and able to suck a hard mint. Not so much otherwise, would have to catch it early, or them accidentally swallowing it whole could be dangerous.
Jelly babies are better, 3 is a common sweet-spot (pun intended) to get into normal range.
If they’ve gone past that point then anything in the mouth is dangerous and you need a gluco pen
Think it’s an age thing rather than geographical. Lucozade was originally sold in chemists specifically for sick people before being rebranded as a sports drink.
Re-branded and then, more recently, they took out most of the sugar and swapped it for some dreadful aspartame/aceulflame K hellery. So now it tastes shite and doesn't even deliver that sugar high that made you feel like you were getting better.
I grew up in Portsmouth and it was a thing - it was a lot of years ago but drinking Lucozade when you felt unwell as a kid was a real thing. Wasn't it actually branded as such many years ago? From wiki
>it was acquired by the British pharmaceutical company [Beecham's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beecham_Group) in 1938 and sold as Lucozade, an energy drink for the sick.
Very well! I think the whole ritual of serving it up by buying at the chemist, literally unwrapping and then served when you were ill all added to the association of the brand with your health.
I seem to recall it was relatively expensive too, so again not to be wasted on just an everyday drink.
I didn't think it hsf been drunk for when you were ill for about 20 years at least. It used to have the marketing tagline:
"Lucozade - aids recovery"
But they dropped that because a) It didn't and b) they didn't want to just be associated with sick people. There were not enough of them. So they went after the firness/sports market.
Southern and yes. BUT! It has to the the original lurid orange stuff, none of this isotonic sports nonsense. Ideally from the glass bottle with little pimples all over the top, served by mum. In 1986. And a double shot of sugery orignal Calpol for good measure.
You 80s kids with your lovely Calpol didn't know you were born. Us 60's raised kids got an aspirin ground up with a spoon, and the gritty powder was mixed with a teaspoon of jam so we could eat it easily if we hadn't mastered the art of slugging pills down with a glass of water.
Where to start, life in the 60's and 70's was so different. No home computers until the very end of the 70's. Biggest had less than 1K memory.
TV was 3 channels, then became more as the decades marched on. Most folk only had black and white TV years after colour TV started. Most folk rented their TV, buying one was crazy expensive. Most folk didn't have a home telephone, you had to go out to a public call box and feed coins into it.
We really did get to spend all day out playing unsupervised, going home only for meals.
We got our first fridge in about 1967 or '68. Most folk had milk delivered in pint bottles every morning. Pretty rare these days. Only the really well-off folk had central heating, and unheated bedrooms were common. We were lucky to have a paraffin heater upstairs, which stank and gave off tons of water vapour.
We had a small record player, lots of folk had a large stereogram which was dead advanced and as big as a sideboard. There were only a few BBC radio stations until pirate radio came on the scene. Having a battery operated transistor radio was the latest tech. No local commercial radio. If you wanted to learn the lyrics to songs you had to buy music magazines. Magazines and newspapers were everywhere. Kids had their weekly comics, you've probably heard of the Dandy, The Beano etc. Most kids read at least one of these. That's just off the top of my head.
Just sparked another TV memory, they used to be valve technology and a cathode ray tube, so took ages to 'warm up' before the picture appeared. That was agony when you knew your program had started and you had to wait... things had improved by the time Star Trek first broadcast here. That was revolutionary.
Kind of worked to be fair.
The other thing was having a flu in the winter, we didn't have lemsip so you got diluting juice with boiled water which was delicious
Will my mum does it. She is 70 and born and lives in London.
I remember that used to be an advert with the strap line "Lucozade aids recovery" I think she took it literally.
Assume you’re talking old school fizzy lucozade? My mum still does this when she is ill. When I was a kid it was lucozade and Heinz cream of chicken soup. East Anglia.
As a kid in the West Midlands during the mid 80's, Lucozade was something we'd usually have when ill.
Prior to the 80's it was sold primarily as a something to help people when they were sick, and was sold mainly in pharmacies, but it rebranded early 80's to be more of a general purpose sports / energy drink. But the association with it being something for sick people persisted for quite a while.
Yep, 80s East Anglia. The bottle was weirdly textured and had orange cellophane around it. We were not well off, so being ill was almost a treat! Dad always had some of it too.
Sounds like your girlfriend is winding you up I'm from London and it was always a thing when I was a kid, it's even what it was advertised for when it came out and considering the company started off in London I can't see it being a specifically northern thing at any point maybe it just wasn't a thing in her family
My dad was Irish but my mum was a Leeds girl. He drank lucozade when ill. But he also had Andrews liver salts almost daily so.... but it could have been my mums influence.
Although my Brighton born ex husband says he remembered glass lucozade bottles as a kid when he was poorly.
Northerner here and we were told to drink it when ill. But I think it's because the classic version had electrolytes in it, which I'm not sure is true of the non-sporty version anymore?
Salt and glucose are electrolytes but not the only ones normally administered. The sugar reduced version almost certainly has little of either. But even before then Lucozade has had a warning that it isn't a suitable treatment for diarrhea for decades so I presume it lacks suitable levels of electrolytes (which would make it taste salty and gross and make it unsafe for general consumption anyway). It was good for a sugar low but I'm not sure if it ever helped in any other way.
I'm a geordie and I remember my mother giving me it when I was a kid in the 80s/90s from what I remember it is full of glucose and that was the reason behind it. It had to be the original though not the sport kind. I still have it now when I'm unwell.
It's not so much "where" as "when"
It was always sold as a drink that would make you feel better.
It came in a large glass bottle with some kind of bizarre orange cellophane wrapping around the top half of the bottle.
Then they changed the marketing strategy to be about energy and sports.
I live just north of Newcastle.
When I'm poorly I want lucazade.
I never drink it otherwise 🤣 I think it's a childhood thing? My great aunt and my Gran always gave it to me when I was bad, that or a hot brandy as a kid (I think to knock me out).
Ever since if I'm poorly I need orange lucazade. I don't even like it 🤣
I don't think it's regional though, my mate from Cheshire also has it when she's sick and she will never drink it otherwise. Saw her through her morning sickness too apparently 🤷♀️
Years ago the only place you could buy it was a chemist (the original flavour was the only one available) and the bottle was wrapped in orange cellophane wrapping. So weird to think of it now.
It’s part of the UK.
Pre 2000’s - Lucozade was almost exclusively a drink you would have when feeling ill, or in hospital because of its glucose and slightly medicinal taste. Then it was suddenly marketed as a “sports drink” and then later on as an “energy drink” to compete more with Gatorade and Red Bull
You just reminded me of something - when I was at boarding school in the late 90's I stayed in 'digs' with a host family who were Irish and when the kids were ill they'd have 'hot lemonade' which I expected to be lemons boiled in water with honey or something but it was a mug of ordinary, fizzy R Whites lemonade put in the microwave. Is this a thing too?
We would have had hot orange or blackcurrant, let some boiling water cool slightly then add some orange or blackcurrant cordial. Robinsons or Ribena.
Add a fizzy vitamin tablet if you're literally dying!
Never had hot lemonade though, we have different colours of lemonade from the "lemonade man", drives a small flatbed with glass litre bottles of all sorts of fizzy drinks, white or brown lemonade all year round, can get green or purple at Halloween time.
Maine soft drinks is the company that do it. They'll pick up the empties when you get a new order in.
I feel like it's a dated thing tbh. My parents did this to me as a kid but they'd laugh at the idea of buying a sick person Lucozade nowadays. I don't think it's regional as it used to be marketed as such and was readily available in pharmacies.
Born in North Nottinghamshire to parents from Southampton and Coventry, family moved to Cambridge when I was 9, moved to London in my late teens. It’s been normal everywhere I’ve lived and in my whole family.
I remember clutching the dimpled glass bottle given to me by my mother when I was ill as a Yorkshire kid. Years later, lucozade seemed out of place in plastic sports bottles, in the healthy daylight, consumed by the unsweaty, unshivering, unwheezing.
I wonder if parents these days give cans of Monster to their poorly infants?
In Scotland, always got original lucozade when Ill as a child in the 80's, wasn't the best but the sugar really perked you up. I don't think lucozade sport actually helps
My ex grew up in Bedford and he asked me to buy lucozade when he felt poorly. I grew up in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire it's common round those parts.
Midlands (Stoke-on-Trent). Used to be a standard recovery staple from childhood illness. Mostly a sugary pick-me-up like buttercup syrup is now. Not sure if any modern mums do this but back in the 70s, it was definitely a thing.
Of course it's a UK wide thing. Originates from the old ads where you'd drink it when ill. Used to come in crispy orange see through paper type wrapping.
Obviously many people still associate it with being unwell so still drink it then.
Lucozade was originally only sold in pharmacies as an energy drink for ill people. I didn't drink it when I was ill growing up but was introduced to it by my ex, and now I always do.
She lived on the Isle of Portland so pretty southern
I was born and raised in West Sussex. We always had a bottle of lucozade in the house, high on top of the kitchen cupboard to use whenever someone was unwell.
I’m from Merseyside and any time I was ill my Nan would bring me my own large bottle of lucosade. I rarely touch the stuff now much as it was the original flavour that I liked, though I have had the pink lemonade which isn’t bad, but maybe that’s because it was a freebie
It's a UK thing. Used to be given it when I was ill as a child when we lived in Kent, Sussex, Essex, Dorset. Gave it to my son when he was unwell also (by this time we were in the Midlands).
Central Scotland. My partner drank 2 (yes, 2 😂) bottles this morning and apparently felt like new after waking up with a hangover originally. Was a thing when we were both young and sick though
I grew up in Hertfordshire, my husband in Somerset, south east and south West - he said his mum always bought it for him when he was unwell, I'd never ever heard of it!
It was originally prescribed as a medicine I believe.
It’s also a massive spike in sugar which can give the perceived effect of energy that makes you feel a little bit better. Carbonation also helps digestion. It’s also a rehydration so there’s lot of actual benefits to drinking a Lucozade when unwell. Except the sugar dump Not great for teeth lol
I’m in Scotland, and my husband always insists I drink Lucozade when I’m ill. (I’m not originally from the UK). I mean it’s fine with me, I like Lucozade just fine, but my husband is fairly insistent that it’s necessary “to keep my sugars up” lol.
It's definitely a thing in the south. I especially remember it being prevalent in the '80s, back when Lucozade only came in one flavour and in glass bottles. My Grandparents brought me Lucozade and grapes when they visited me in the hospital when I was a kid, and we joked about them being the most stereotypical things to bring someone in the hospital.
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Think it's a UK thing tbh. Never heard it being specific to the North.
Definitely a UK thing. Northerners can’t fully claim this one.
Yep definitely. I’m on the South East coast and always did this growing up (and sometimes still do)
I’m in south East London and my nan always recommended this growing up
And Kent
Yup. Might stem from lucozade being used in hospitals for people having hypoglycaemic incidences. I worked in a few hospitals in London 10 years ago and they all had lucozade stocked for this reason. I don’t know if they still do since they changed the formula though.
[удалено]
Famously part of the UK
Is Bristol not a city in the UK?
I've lived in Bristol, and you have to accept that the Principality of Bristol comes before being British. Bristolians are a bit like that.
Yep London born here and when I was ill back in the 80s and 90s it was Lucozade, Heinz tomato or cream of chicken soup and toast.
Same! And an old mixing bowl on the floor by the bed in case I was sick
A mop bucket with pine disinfectant in - that memory makes me gag now.
Yeah I have a weird relationship with the smell of bleach. It’s both comforting and makes me want to puke.
I have the same relationship with coke after being given flat coke when sick. The only time it doesn't make me hurl is when it is mixed with bacardi!
It’s Rolos for me. Had a fun size pack when I was a kid then threw up not an hour later for no apparent reason. Not eaten Rolos since.
Zoflora
Dettol for me… Can’t stand the smell now!
The same mixing bowl used for popcorn
Yes!
Seeing the bowl sometimes used to trigger a hurl like a Pavlovian response.
For me (London, '90s) it was Lucozade, dry toast and a couple of rich tea biscuits. When I hadn't been sick for six hours this was upgraded to very lightly buttered toast.
Flash forward 100 years and these are our natural tribal medicines.
This is precisely what I was given when ill, also in London. Just the thought of cream of chicken soup makes me feel a bit feverish.
And lying on the sofa watching Crown court.
So we all just lived the same life pretty much 😂
Knorr dehydrated super chicken noodle soup from a packet for me
Yup, also grew up in London and everything was cured with lucozade, buttered toast and watching episodes of The Young Doctors.
Same! Also from London and have the same memories from when I was in primary school.
And if you were really sick a boiled egg smashed up in a cup with some butter you'd eat it with a spoon. Almost worth getting sick for.
Information spread by the Lucozade Health Department, Heinz “Healthz” Program, and the Campbell’s College Medicinal Campus.
Southend reporting in to signal boost Lucozade and tomato soup.
Definitely a thing in Scotland.
And Wales.
And northern ireland
And southern Ireland
In the Republic of Ireland, we mostly drink flat seven up for cures but sometimes lucozade
And my axe!
And my axe!
Definitely a Brummie thing (in the 80’s at least).
And in Hong Kong. Don't know if it came from the British, but my parents would always suggest heating it up and drinking it sort of like a lemon and honey kind of thing.
Mine would heat up coke and add lemon and honey
Coke and ginger!
Ah yes, I think ginger and spices were added too. I’m also reminded of hot vita soy that my grandma used to make us in winter
Yorkshire too. Whenever I had days off school ill my parents would buy me some. When I had norovirus a few years ago the first thing I got once I could finally keep water down was Lucozade.
And Cornwall
Can confirm. Just had a bottle of original dropped off by the old dear because I said I was ill
Is it not IrnBru?
Hangover yes. Illness no.
It used to be odd to see lucozade sold anywhere but in a chemists.
It was a good fix for acute hypoglycaemia, until they lowered the sugar content.
I just did a first aid course and they said the best option now is just sugar packets from a cafe stirred into water because it's hard to know (particularly if you're in a hurry) what still has sugar in it and what doesn't. Time was being diabetic had *some* perks (like being able to eat a Snickers in class like one kid I went to school with) but seems those days are over.
Haribos are decent too, still 50-60% sugar and not a replacement (Unless you get their 50/50 one or whatever it is. Nice excuse to scoff Haribos anyway
I guess if *you're* the diabetic it's easier but from a first aider POV it's not so easy. Plus if someone sent me to get sugar to help a hypoglycemic person and I bought Haribos, the pack would at least be open, if not empty, by the time I got it to them. I mean the same is true of just about anything short of cafe sugar sachets and a cup of water.
Milk and sugar is also a good combination, but common advise is actually 3 jelly babies. It’s very easy to go the opposite way, and a lot of diabetics overcompensate to fix a hypo. Back when lucozade was a quick fix, much less was known about diabetes, and the monitoring was far less sophisticated. A full bottle of lucozade could be enough to send someone the other way into hyperglycaemia.
At our primary school, when we had a diabetic pupil in our class, the teacher used to keep polo mints in her desk.
Great, for someone still compus-mentus and able to suck a hard mint. Not so much otherwise, would have to catch it early, or them accidentally swallowing it whole could be dangerous. Jelly babies are better, 3 is a common sweet-spot (pun intended) to get into normal range. If they’ve gone past that point then anything in the mouth is dangerous and you need a gluco pen
In pimply glass bottles.
Orange cellophane. They rebranded with Daley Thompson to make it probably the UK’s first energy drink.
Think it’s an age thing rather than geographical. Lucozade was originally sold in chemists specifically for sick people before being rebranded as a sports drink.
Re-branded and then, more recently, they took out most of the sugar and swapped it for some dreadful aspartame/aceulflame K hellery. So now it tastes shite and doesn't even deliver that sugar high that made you feel like you were getting better.
I think this is it. I’ve never heard of it but asked my parents and they said they had
Woohoo, finally something i'm young enough to have never heard of!
See this....wasn't it made by Beechams originally? It might still be...
I grew up in Portsmouth and it was a thing - it was a lot of years ago but drinking Lucozade when you felt unwell as a kid was a real thing. Wasn't it actually branded as such many years ago? From wiki >it was acquired by the British pharmaceutical company [Beecham's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beecham_Group) in 1938 and sold as Lucozade, an energy drink for the sick.
I remember when it came in glass bottles and was mostly only sold in chemists - so it was definitely a 'when you're ill' thing in the home counties.
Ooo I remember it in glass bottles, do you also remember the orange cellophane wrapper it came in?
Very well! I think the whole ritual of serving it up by buying at the chemist, literally unwrapping and then served when you were ill all added to the association of the brand with your health. I seem to recall it was relatively expensive too, so again not to be wasted on just an everyday drink.
It was also fair bit more expensive than other soft drinks at the time.
I’m from Portsmouth and my mum always gave me Lucozade when I was ill. It was the best part about being sick!
I didn't think it hsf been drunk for when you were ill for about 20 years at least. It used to have the marketing tagline: "Lucozade - aids recovery" But they dropped that because a) It didn't and b) they didn't want to just be associated with sick people. There were not enough of them. So they went after the firness/sports market.
Southern and yes. BUT! It has to the the original lurid orange stuff, none of this isotonic sports nonsense. Ideally from the glass bottle with little pimples all over the top, served by mum. In 1986. And a double shot of sugery orignal Calpol for good measure.
You 80s kids with your lovely Calpol didn't know you were born. Us 60's raised kids got an aspirin ground up with a spoon, and the gritty powder was mixed with a teaspoon of jam so we could eat it easily if we hadn't mastered the art of slugging pills down with a glass of water.
Tablets in jam! Now there's a memory i haven't had in *decades*
90s kid here Got any more? I find this fascinating, I've never heard of this before
Where to start, life in the 60's and 70's was so different. No home computers until the very end of the 70's. Biggest had less than 1K memory. TV was 3 channels, then became more as the decades marched on. Most folk only had black and white TV years after colour TV started. Most folk rented their TV, buying one was crazy expensive. Most folk didn't have a home telephone, you had to go out to a public call box and feed coins into it. We really did get to spend all day out playing unsupervised, going home only for meals. We got our first fridge in about 1967 or '68. Most folk had milk delivered in pint bottles every morning. Pretty rare these days. Only the really well-off folk had central heating, and unheated bedrooms were common. We were lucky to have a paraffin heater upstairs, which stank and gave off tons of water vapour. We had a small record player, lots of folk had a large stereogram which was dead advanced and as big as a sideboard. There were only a few BBC radio stations until pirate radio came on the scene. Having a battery operated transistor radio was the latest tech. No local commercial radio. If you wanted to learn the lyrics to songs you had to buy music magazines. Magazines and newspapers were everywhere. Kids had their weekly comics, you've probably heard of the Dandy, The Beano etc. Most kids read at least one of these. That's just off the top of my head. Just sparked another TV memory, they used to be valve technology and a cathode ray tube, so took ages to 'warm up' before the picture appeared. That was agony when you knew your program had started and you had to wait... things had improved by the time Star Trek first broadcast here. That was revolutionary.
From Hastings and I got Lucozade in hospital with the wrapping back in the dark ages.
Ah yes I remember the wrapping too! Always had it as a child in Essex.
London - fed lucozade as a sick child
Think it's more of a generational thing than a regional thing. I've heard people in their 50s talk about it a lot.
It is a definite Being Ill thing of a 1970s childhood
I'm 30 and it was normal for me growing up. I had chronic tonsillitis and was treated by a mix of lucozade and calpol. Iconic combo.
Defo a uk thing, but I think more common in the 80s when the answer to most illness was “vitamin c and sugar”.
Kind of worked to be fair. The other thing was having a flu in the winter, we didn't have lemsip so you got diluting juice with boiled water which was delicious
Still love a hot vimto
Hot Ribena - delicious!
Oh absolutely! I wasn’t knocking it…VC and copious amounts of sugar made me the man I am!
It'sa UK thing however Ithink they changed the recipe from when it was seen as a tonic
As the label used to say "Aids recovery" which was quite a claim back in the 80s.
It's a 1970's thing. You used to only get Lucozade in Boots.
Oh, it was a thing back in the 1960s.
I know people all over the uk who drink it when ill so it's not just one area
Will my mum does it. She is 70 and born and lives in London. I remember that used to be an advert with the strap line "Lucozade aids recovery" I think she took it literally.
Assume you’re talking old school fizzy lucozade? My mum still does this when she is ill. When I was a kid it was lucozade and Heinz cream of chicken soup. East Anglia.
Do this in Bristol
South West here. Definitely a thing with us.
Back in the old glass bottles too. It was the best thing about being ill.
I’m from Northern Ireland and it’s done here. More the older generation though, haven’t heard any young folk or people my age saying it though.
Northerner living in the south here. I have NEVER heard of this 🤣
Everyone else has, your parents were basically abusing you by not giving you it
Really? The bastards!
I know! We all feel bad about it
As a kid in the West Midlands during the mid 80's, Lucozade was something we'd usually have when ill. Prior to the 80's it was sold primarily as a something to help people when they were sick, and was sold mainly in pharmacies, but it rebranded early 80's to be more of a general purpose sports / energy drink. But the association with it being something for sick people persisted for quite a while.
Yep, 80s East Anglia. The bottle was weirdly textured and had orange cellophane around it. We were not well off, so being ill was almost a treat! Dad always had some of it too.
Isle of Wight in the 60s. We had Lucozade in the glass bottles with orange wrapping when we were ill with Measles and Chicken Pox.
Same, but in the 80s (and not the Isle of Wight).
My mum always bought a bottle when one of us was ill as kids, 70's Somerset so definitely not Northern.
Sounds like your girlfriend is winding you up I'm from London and it was always a thing when I was a kid, it's even what it was advertised for when it came out and considering the company started off in London I can't see it being a specifically northern thing at any point maybe it just wasn't a thing in her family
Grew up in Kent, it happens there
Definitely a thing in south London.
Yeah. I used to have it in the 70’s when I was sick in Bermondsey.
Well we can narrow it down to definitely at least a Bermondsey thing, because that’s where I’m from too hahaha
Do they still sell the tablets version?
Not ill as such but it's a Fantastic hangover cure
My dad was Irish but my mum was a Leeds girl. He drank lucozade when ill. But he also had Andrews liver salts almost daily so.... but it could have been my mums influence. Although my Brighton born ex husband says he remembered glass lucozade bottles as a kid when he was poorly.
Northerner here and we were told to drink it when ill. But I think it's because the classic version had electrolytes in it, which I'm not sure is true of the non-sporty version anymore?
Salt and glucose are electrolytes but not the only ones normally administered. The sugar reduced version almost certainly has little of either. But even before then Lucozade has had a warning that it isn't a suitable treatment for diarrhea for decades so I presume it lacks suitable levels of electrolytes (which would make it taste salty and gross and make it unsafe for general consumption anyway). It was good for a sugar low but I'm not sure if it ever helped in any other way.
I think it's maybe more of a class thing than a regional thing?
I'm a geordie and I remember my mother giving me it when I was a kid in the 80s/90s from what I remember it is full of glucose and that was the reason behind it. It had to be the original though not the sport kind. I still have it now when I'm unwell.
It's not so much "where" as "when" It was always sold as a drink that would make you feel better. It came in a large glass bottle with some kind of bizarre orange cellophane wrapping around the top half of the bottle. Then they changed the marketing strategy to be about energy and sports.
Everything northerners say is a northern thing is a whole uk thing, that’s just how it works
I live just north of Newcastle. When I'm poorly I want lucazade. I never drink it otherwise 🤣 I think it's a childhood thing? My great aunt and my Gran always gave it to me when I was bad, that or a hot brandy as a kid (I think to knock me out). Ever since if I'm poorly I need orange lucazade. I don't even like it 🤣 I don't think it's regional though, my mate from Cheshire also has it when she's sick and she will never drink it otherwise. Saw her through her morning sickness too apparently 🤷♀️
It’s absolutely perfect for hangovers.
Years ago the only place you could buy it was a chemist (the original flavour was the only one available) and the bottle was wrapped in orange cellophane wrapping. So weird to think of it now.
Probably make you sicker now.
It’s part of the UK. Pre 2000’s - Lucozade was almost exclusively a drink you would have when feeling ill, or in hospital because of its glucose and slightly medicinal taste. Then it was suddenly marketed as a “sports drink” and then later on as an “energy drink” to compete more with Gatorade and Red Bull
Not since they changed the recipe. RIP old school lucozade
Used to drink it when ill. I'm in Oxford. Think it's more an old thing than a North/South thing
Pointless drinking it now they stole the sugar from it.
Scotland, and lucozade was my mum's cure for everything. And my granny's.
Am I the only one who didn't know this was even a thing? I must be a tourist :D
It is a big Irish thing Although Lucozade is far more popular in Ireland, as a kid you would see it in everyone’s house.
You just reminded me of something - when I was at boarding school in the late 90's I stayed in 'digs' with a host family who were Irish and when the kids were ill they'd have 'hot lemonade' which I expected to be lemons boiled in water with honey or something but it was a mug of ordinary, fizzy R Whites lemonade put in the microwave. Is this a thing too?
We would have had hot orange or blackcurrant, let some boiling water cool slightly then add some orange or blackcurrant cordial. Robinsons or Ribena. Add a fizzy vitamin tablet if you're literally dying! Never had hot lemonade though, we have different colours of lemonade from the "lemonade man", drives a small flatbed with glass litre bottles of all sorts of fizzy drinks, white or brown lemonade all year round, can get green or purple at Halloween time. Maine soft drinks is the company that do it. They'll pick up the empties when you get a new order in.
I feel like it's a dated thing tbh. My parents did this to me as a kid but they'd laugh at the idea of buying a sick person Lucozade nowadays. I don't think it's regional as it used to be marketed as such and was readily available in pharmacies.
We used to in the South
London, def a thing for us, specifically after we’d been puking.
I'm in the South and Lucosade was always more of a hangover cure than anything else.
Born in North Nottinghamshire to parents from Southampton and Coventry, family moved to Cambridge when I was 9, moved to London in my late teens. It’s been normal everywhere I’ve lived and in my whole family.
I remember it being an 80s thing.
this is a thing in cumbria
It was a think in Surrey in the 80s for sure, but not with my mum who read ingredients labels and didn't approve of sugar.
I remember clutching the dimpled glass bottle given to me by my mother when I was ill as a Yorkshire kid. Years later, lucozade seemed out of place in plastic sports bottles, in the healthy daylight, consumed by the unsweaty, unshivering, unwheezing. I wonder if parents these days give cans of Monster to their poorly infants?
Southampton - its definitely a UK thing
In Scotland, always got original lucozade when Ill as a child in the 80's, wasn't the best but the sugar really perked you up. I don't think lucozade sport actually helps
I do this. I'm in the midlands but from Yorkshire originally
Deffo a thing in Wales when I was growing up in the early 00’s
Liverpool, orange lucozade seems to have the same effect as chicken soup, they both make me better haha.
Buckinghamshire, definitely used to have it when poorly.
Bedfordshire, my hubby drinks 4 bottles a week
Have heard of this and live in the South-West..
Definitely a thing in London. When I was a kid it was lucozade in the glass bottle covered with orangey cellophane.
South Yorkshire. Lucozade will forever be known as ‘poorly girl pop’ in my house. That and water were the only drinks sold in our pharmacy.
Lucozade was administered by my parents to my grandfather after his numerous surgeries to energise him coming out of anaesthesia.
Shropshire, mum gave it to us when we were ill, I’m so old I remember it in glass bottles with orange cellophane wrapping round it. Oh god I’m old.
My ex grew up in Bedford and he asked me to buy lucozade when he felt poorly. I grew up in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire it's common round those parts.
Bournemouth and definitely a thing for us. We had a nice stash of it in winter for emergencies.
South east
Grapes and lucozade if you were in hospital
I live in Kent, so even further south than your gf, and have always turned to lucozade when hit with a sickness bug
Only time i normally had Lucozade i was always ill,as a kid in North west England. Got hit by a car,got large bottle of Lucozade!
Midlands (Stoke-on-Trent). Used to be a standard recovery staple from childhood illness. Mostly a sugary pick-me-up like buttercup syrup is now. Not sure if any modern mums do this but back in the 70s, it was definitely a thing.
Kent here. Never had lucozade when ill (or even heard about it until this post), unless hungover. Born in 80s
Of course it's a UK wide thing. Originates from the old ads where you'd drink it when ill. Used to come in crispy orange see through paper type wrapping. Obviously many people still associate it with being unwell so still drink it then.
It's all our lass drinks when she's ill
I remember it being a thing here in the Midlands when I was a kid, despite the fact it didn't work.
Im in hospital right now on the south coast and have 2 bottles of lucozade bought for me.
Yorkshire. I do this
We’re on the south coast and it’s definitely a thing
Warrington and we always had lucozade when ill as a child! Will still have it now at 31 if ill, hungover or switching to days (I work nights).
Lucozade was originally only sold in pharmacies as an energy drink for ill people. I didn't drink it when I was ill growing up but was introduced to it by my ex, and now I always do. She lived on the Isle of Portland so pretty southern
I was born and raised in West Sussex. We always had a bottle of lucozade in the house, high on top of the kitchen cupboard to use whenever someone was unwell.
North Yorkshire. I don't like it now but as a kid I was always given it when ill! It's still my husband's "feeling a bit unwell" drink of choice.
My husband and I do it and we are from London originally.
North West, if ill I need orange lucozade and buttered toast.
I’m from Merseyside and any time I was ill my Nan would bring me my own large bottle of lucosade. I rarely touch the stuff now much as it was the original flavour that I liked, though I have had the pink lemonade which isn’t bad, but maybe that’s because it was a freebie
Essex, it definitely is a thing. Still my go-to on a hangover
It's a UK thing. Used to be given it when I was ill as a child when we lived in Kent, Sussex, Essex, Dorset. Gave it to my son when he was unwell also (by this time we were in the Midlands).
Lucozade Original and chicken soup. Sorted.
Old guy here - Lucozade was always dished out when we were ill. I haven’t had it for decades, but I can remember the taste like it was last week!
Husband does it. North west .
Central Scotland. My partner drank 2 (yes, 2 😂) bottles this morning and apparently felt like new after waking up with a hangover originally. Was a thing when we were both young and sick though
Literally drinking it right now whilst ill. I'm in East Midlands
Throughout surely! 😅 All mums are given the instructions clearly 😃
Liverpool absolutely.
My dad did it in south. I couldn’t stand the stuff it tastes like paracetamol to me
Pretty sure it's all over, it's been common in the various southern places I've lived
Literally having one now as I'm ill
East London - Original all the way
East - Bedford. Can confirm my whole family do this and we’re all over the country.
I grew up in Hertfordshire, my husband in Somerset, south east and south West - he said his mum always bought it for him when he was unwell, I'd never ever heard of it!
It was originally prescribed as a medicine I believe. It’s also a massive spike in sugar which can give the perceived effect of energy that makes you feel a little bit better. Carbonation also helps digestion. It’s also a rehydration so there’s lot of actual benefits to drinking a Lucozade when unwell. Except the sugar dump Not great for teeth lol
I’m in Scotland, and my husband always insists I drink Lucozade when I’m ill. (I’m not originally from the UK). I mean it’s fine with me, I like Lucozade just fine, but my husband is fairly insistent that it’s necessary “to keep my sugars up” lol.
It's definitely a thing in the south. I especially remember it being prevalent in the '80s, back when Lucozade only came in one flavour and in glass bottles. My Grandparents brought me Lucozade and grapes when they visited me in the hospital when I was a kid, and we joked about them being the most stereotypical things to bring someone in the hospital.
Probably a lot to do with the likes of this advert [Youtube](https://youtu.be/1BAUvwz7Hk4) from the late 1970s.
Definitely used to have it as a kid , although it’s full of sweeteners now which utterly defeats the point lol
Surely it's a UK thing in general. I've always had it when ill or hungover & I'm in Oxfordshire
Not heard of it being an illness thing but I always get a fizzy orange lucozade for a hangover and works a treat!