Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Abies nigra is a single homeopathic remedy. It is made from black spruce, a tree of eastern Canada and the northern United States. Its Latin name is Picea mariana (Abies nigra).
Homeopaths give it most often for stomach upset. The classic picture is a feeling of a hard lump, like an egg, in the stomach after eating. It is also used for hiccups, wind and poor sleep in older adults.
Here is the plain verdict. The remedy is watered down step by step, and at 30C none of the tree is left. Trials do not show it beats a dummy pill (placebo), and long use in one tradition is not proof that it works.
No one has shown a way it could work in the body.
Homeopathy holds that a substance which causes symptoms in a well person can ease like symptoms in a sick one, once it is watered down. The remedy is made by shaking and watering down the plant extract again and again.
At 30C the odds that even one molecule (tiny particle) of spruce is left are close to zero. So any change you feel is best put down to time, care and belief.
It comes as small sugar pills, as liquid drops, or as a mother tincture (the plant extract before it is watered down).
Common strengths are 6C, 30C and 200C. Some makers also sell 6X or 3X, which are watered down less.
The mother tincture and the lowest strengths still hold real plant matter. Treat those with more care than a 30C pill.
Black spruce grows in the cold forests of Canada and the northern United States. Native peoples used the gum and inner bark as chewing gum, food and a drink. Settlers brewed spruce beer from the twigs.
Homeopaths tested the remedy on healthy people in the 1800s. American writers such as Edwin Hale wrote it up for stomach and heart symptoms. It has stayed a small remedy, used far less than staples such as Nux vomica.
See a doctor if your indigestion does not settle within a week, keeps coming back, or wakes you at night.
Get medical help the same day for repeated vomiting, black or bloody stools, trouble swallowing, or weight loss you did not plan.
Call emergency services for chest pain or pressure, pain spreading to the arm, jaw or back, sudden shortness of breath, fainting, or a heartbeat that races or skips. These can be signs of a heart attack. Do not wait to see if a remedy helps.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Abies nigra is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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