Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Kali nitricum is a homeopathic remedy. It is made from saltpetre, the salt also called potassium nitrate. Its Latin name is Kalii nitras.
It is made by diluting the salt in steps, over and over. This is called serial dilution. At 30C, none of the salt is left in the pill.
Homeopaths give it for tight, wheezy breathing, a dry hard cough, and nosebleeds. Trials do not show that it works better than a dummy pill. Long use in a tradition is not proof that a thing works.
The short answer: there is no known way for it to work in the body.
Homeopathy holds that a tiny dose can treat the signs a large dose would cause. It also holds that water keeps a trace, or "memory", of the salt after the salt is gone. These ideas do not match what we know about matter.
At 30C there is nothing of the salt left to act on you. Any change people notice is best put down to the placebo effect (feeling better from a dummy pill) and to illness easing on its own.
Very low dilutions are a different case. Below about 4X, real saltpetre may still be in the dose. Then plain chemistry applies, and so do the risks listed further down.
It comes as small sugar pills, pellets, or liquid drops. The common strengths are 6C, 12C and 30C. Low strengths such as 3X and 6X are also sold.
Drops often hold alcohol. Pills often hold lactose (milk sugar).
Check the label if you avoid either one. Raw garden or meat-curing saltpetre is not a medicine and must never be swallowed.
Saltpetre has a long past outside the pharmacy. People used it to cure meat and to make gunpowder. Old "asthma papers" were soaked in it and burned to be breathed in.
Kali nitricum came into homeopathy in the 1800s. Its picture comes from provings, which are tests on healthy people, written up by Hering and Allen.
It has stayed a minor remedy. Homeopaths reach for Kali carbonicum far more often.
Call emergency services if your breathing is hard and fast, your lips or fingers turn blue, or a reliever inhaler does not help.
Get urgent care if a nosebleed will not stop after ten minutes of firm pinching, or if you feel faint with it.
See your doctor within a few days if a cough lasts more than three weeks, you bring up blood, you get chest pain, or your back ache comes with fever or burning when you pass water.
Also see your doctor if you have swallowed raw saltpetre, or if you feel sick, weak or dizzy after using a low-strength product.
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 Kali nitricum 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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