The homeopathic remedy Cocculus is obtained from the dry fruit of the Anamirta cocculus (also called cocca of the Levant), a shrub of the Memispermacee family. This remedy is especially indicated for dizziness, dizziness, nausea and car sickness, plane sickness and seasickness.
Cocculus Indicus or cocca del levante
Cocculus Indicus, or Levant cocca, is the fruit of Anamirta cocculus, a plant of the Menispermacee family. It is a climbing sapling that grows in Asia (India or Sri Lanka) on rocks and stones. This plant produces fruits that when dry resemble a blackish and wrinkled laurel berry, while when they are ripe they have the appearance of a red drupe. The fruit has two tasteless peels, one woody, opaque and hard, the other even harder and whitish that encloses a white almond with a bitter, acrid and caustic taste.
Cocculus Indicus contains alkaloids and an active ingredient, picrotoxin, which at toxic doses modifies the action of secondary vestibular neurons causing vestibular and motor disorders. Nevertheless, the Cocca del Levante is used not only in Homeopathy but also in Phytotherapy for the richness of berberine and palmatin.
These fruits, and in particular their seeds, are used by the populations of eastern India and Malabar for fishing: crushed and thrown into the water, they spread in a wide range the toxic principle to which fish are extremely sensitive. Picrotoxin paralyzes the swim bladder, preventing the expulsion of the gases contained in it, thus killing the fish.
Cocculus: homeopathic remedy
The fruit of Anamirta cocculus, as we have seen, contains alkaloids and an active ingredient (picrotoxin) which, at toxic doses, modifies the action of secondary vestibular neurons causing vestibular and motor disorders. By similarity, in Homeopathy, Cocculus exerts an elective action on the central nervous system.
The remedy is prepared by shredding the dried fruit, or with the seeds pulverized, or it can be obtained thanks to the maceration of a part of pulverized seeds in 20 parts of alcohol at 90 °.
The action of this remedy is acute and, for this reason, it is used mainly in the following cases:
- vertiginous syndromes of varying etiology;
- headaches in the occipital site;
- dysmenorrhea with painful spasms;
- feeling of emptiness and dizziness with each movement of the head;
- motion sickness, car sickness, air sickness, seasickness;
- psychomotor hyperexcitability;
- neurasthenia;
- feeling of emptiness in the head that is associated with vertigo during movements.
Therefore, the homeopathic remedy Cocculus indicus is a valid aid against illness and prostration caused by motion sickness, especially in sensitive and apprehensive people.
The cocculus homeopathic remedy for dizziness
Vertigo is the illusory sensation of oscillation and rotation of one’s body and loss of balance. In most cases, dizziness is due to problems with the labyrinth of the ear and is accompanied by nausea, vomiting and sweating.
There are two types of vertigo:
- objective (or peripheral) vertigo: when the sensation is referred to the surrounding space with impaired sense of balance;
- subjective (or central) vertigo: when the sensation refers to one’s body.
The causes of dizziness are different, below is a list of the main ones:
- specific pathologies affecting the labyrinth of the ear (the organ of balance) such as labyrinthitis and Ménière’s syndrome;
- cerebrovascular diseases such as arteriosclerosis;
- pressure disorders;
- inflammation of the inner ear;
- infections of the nasal mucosa or laryngeal;
- problems affecting the cervical vertebrae; migraine;
- epilepsy;
- disorders of psychic origin.
Even in case of dizziness, Homeopathy can be a valid help: Cocculus, in fact, is used when dizziness associated with movement occurs as in the case of malaise from a means of transport (for example car sickness). In these cases it is useful to take the remedy just before departure and as needed. The remedy is also useful for violent dizziness triggered by vestibular crises that worsen by sitting, turning the gaze or observing moving objects but also in case of crises triggered by prolonged night vigils.
The constitutional type Coccolus
The constitutional type Coccolus is a subject with a docile temperament, lazy, indolent and having clear eyes. Typical is the description of the blonde girl with light eyes, hypochondriac, shy, who takes care of a seriously ill relative losing sleep.
The Coccolus type is a lymphatic-nervous subject, weak, cold, vagotonic, with an irritability and hypersensitivity of all the senses to noises and emotions. In other cases, however, it can be slow throughout.
“young people always bent over books, sentimental young women, romantic, with menstrual disorders, or pregnant women, however, they are often blonde women with a lot of nausea and vomiting”.
Here are its clinical features:
Etiology:
The possible causes are: illness after prolonged loss of sleep or after prolonged vigils; mental and physical overexertion; emotions, including especially depressing ones, long-lasting sorrows, repeated oppositions; diseases in relation to an organic lesion of the nervous system.
Mental symptoms:
- symptoms of depression: considerable slowness of conception and understanding, mental numbness, bad memory for the most recent facts, responds slowly to questions;
- irritability;
- hypersensitivity to noise;
- anxiety: anxiety of conscience (i.e. scruples of conscience, feelings of guilt), anxiety from excitement, anxiety with fear of the future and with feelings of guilt, anxiety about health;
- hallucinations.
General symptoms:
- extreme weakness of the whole body, with a feeling of paresis or paralysis;
- feeling of emptiness in the head, stomach, abdomen;
- feeling dizzy and seasick;
- nausea with dizziness and hypersalivation;
- slow ideation;
- hypersensitivity to contact;
- stinging, stinging-burning, constricting or paralyzing pains.
The symptoms of this subject are aggravated by passive movement, vehicles, and also by the sight of movement; from shocks; from the open and cold air; from stimulants such as coffee and tobacco; from lack of sleep. Instead, they improve indoors and sitting.
