COCCULUS INDICUS

Cocculus Indicus

(Indian Cockle)

Cocc.

Cocculus Indicus affects many spasmodic and paretic conditions, particularly those impacting one side of the body. It targets the cerebrum but doesn’t cure convulsive seizures from the spinal cord (A. E. Hinsdale). It relieves painful limb and trunk contractures, tetanus, and the adverse effects of night watching. It is notably effective for light-haired females, especially during pregnancy, causing significant nausea and backache. It is also useful for unmarried and childless women, and sensitive, romantic girls. Symptoms worsen when riding in a carriage or on a boat, making it effective for seasickness. There is a sensation of hollowness or numbness, and a weakness that makes speaking loudly difficult.

Mind: Capricious, heavy, and slow. Time seems to pass quickly while absorbed in reveries. Irresistible urge to sing. Slow comprehension, mental numbness, profound sadness, inability to bear contradiction, hasty speech, and excessive concern for others’ health.

Head: Vertigo and nausea, especially when riding or sitting up. Sense of emptiness in the head. Headache in the occiput and nape, worse when lying on the back. Sick headache from riding in a carriage, inability to lie on the back. Pupils contracted, sensation of opening and shutting in the occiput, trembling of the head, and pain in the eyes as if they were being torn out.

Face: Paralysis of the facial nerve, cramp-like pain in the masseter muscle, worse when opening the mouth, and prosopalgia in the afternoon with wide-spreading pain.

Stomach: Nausea from riding in vehicles or looking at moving boats, worse when cold. Nausea with faintness and vomiting, aversion to food, drink, and tobacco. Metallic taste, paralysis of swallowing muscles, dryness in the esophagus, seasickness (Res. Ix), cramps during and after meals, hiccoughs, spasmodic yawning, loss of appetite, desire for cold drinks, especially beer, and disgust at the smell of food (Colch.).

Abdomen: Distended with wind, feeling as if full of sharp stones when moving, better when lying on one side. Pain in the abdominal ring as if something were being forced through. Weak abdominal muscles, with a sensation as if hernia might occur.

Female: Dysmenorrhea with profuse dark menses, menses too early and clotted with spasmodic colic. Painful pressing in the uterine region, followed by hemorrhoids. Purulent, gushing leucorrhea between menses, very weakening, with inability to speak and extreme weakness during menstruation.

Respiratory: Sensation of emptiness and cramps in the chest. Dyspnea from tracheal constriction, as if irritated by smoke. Choking constriction in the upper esophagus, causing respiratory oppression and inducing cough.

Back: Cracking of cervical vertebrae when moving the head, paralytic pain in the lumbosacral region, pain in shoulders and arms as if bruised, pressure in the scapula and nape, and stiffness when moving the shoulders.

Extremities: Lameness worsened by bending, trembling (chorea) and limb pain, arms falling asleep, one-sided paralysis worse after sleep, hands alternately hot and cold, numbness and cold sweat in hands, unsteady numbness, cracking knees on motion, very weak lower limbs, inflammatory knee swelling (arthritis), intensely painful paralytic drawing, limbs straightened out and painful when flexed.

Sleep: Spasmodic yawning, coma vigil, constant drowsiness after loss of sleep, night watching, and nursing.

Fever: Chills with flatulent colic, nausea, vertigo, cold lower extremities, heat in the head, general sweat, nervous low fever, and chilliness with perspiration and heat of skin.

Modalities: Worse with eating, after loss of sleep, in open air, smoking, riding, swimming, touch, noise, jar, afternoon, menstrual period, and after emotional disturbance.

Relationship: Antidotes: Coffea, Nux vomica. Compare with Picrotoxinum (epilepsy, morning attacks upon leaving horizontal position, hernia, locomotor ataxia, night sweats), Symphoricarpus racemosus (morning sickness), Petroleum, Pulsatilla, Ignatia.