Know Your Remedies: Coccus Cacti (Coc-c.)

By Frank Vincentz – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Common Names: Cochineal (N. O. Hemiptera).

General Information

Coccus Cacti (Coc-c) is a remedy for types of cough, including whooping cough, that are accompanied by thick or stringy discharges from mucous membranes. Coughs and other symptoms worsen in Winter, cold weather and open air, and paradoxically, in warm rooms.

Throat

• Rawness, scraping, or tickling that worsens on getting warm in bed.
• Sensation of a crumb which triggers cough.
• Thick, sticky and difficult to expectorate mucus.

Cough

• Cough from irritation or tickling in the throat or chest.
• Cough from brushing teeth or rinsing mouth.
• Cough improves with cold drinks or cold air.
• Paroxysms of cough.
• Cough with retching, vomiting or choking.
• Racking cough that ends in vomiting of clear ropy mucus.
• Cough with thick or ropy mucus hanging in strings from the mouth.
• Types of pertussis (whooping cough).

Ear

• Impaired hearing from thickened mucus.

Urogenital

• Renal colic with shooting, stabbing pains from kidneys to bladder.

Where do I find it?

Coccus Cacti (Coc-c.) is available from our online store as a single remedy in either pills or liquid, and as part of the following Complex (combination remedy): Cough (Loose).

Important

While above self-limiting or acute complaints are suitable for home treatment also contact your healthcare provider during emergency situations or if symptoms worsen or fail to improve. Chronic or persistent complaints, which may or may not be mentioned above, require a different treatment and dosage protocol so are best managed by a qualified homeopath for good results.

Dosage Instructions (suitable for babies to adults)

For the home treatment of acute and self-limiting complaints take one pill or five drops of the remedy every 1 minute to 4 hours (1 minute for intense or emergency symptoms (plus seek emergency help), 4 hours for milder ones). Once an improvement is noticed, stop dosing and repeat the remedy only if symptoms return. If there is no improvement at all by three doses, choose a different remedy or seek professional guidance.

Note: Chronic symptoms or complaints require a course of professional treatment by a qualified homeopath to manage the changes in potencies and remedies that may be required.

More Information

Guidelines on which potency to use

From Past Masters

Homeopathy is a 200-year system of medicine. Early medical homeopaths recorded initial provings, remedy relationships, and their early experiences with each remedy in great detail.

These writings were then shared with others to advance homeopathic knowledge and practice.

Today, these same writings give a fascinating insight into the symptoms and clinical conditions for which each remedy was used.

The following extract, with minor editing, is one example.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics by E. B. NASH M.D.

Coccus Cacti

We are dealing with small fry of the insect order, Coccus cacti, a small bug or insect which infests the plants of the cactus species of Mexico and Central America. It has made its best record in curing affections of the respiratory organs.

Whooping cough with expectoration of much tough, ropy white mucus. This mucus comes in large quantities and is often accompanied with gagging and vomiting, which seems to expel the mucus from the stomach.

With this remedy the aggravations generally come on in the after part of the night or in the morning when the child awakens. The paroxysms are not confined to this time, but the worst one comes then.

The paroxysm ends in vomiting of clear ropy mucus in large quantities, hanging in long strings from the mouth. For such a cough Coccus cacti is excellent.

Sometimes a bronchial catarrh remains after whooping cough, which has this kind of expectoration. Here this remedy will sometimes clear up the whole case.