Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Tansy is a homeopathic remedy. It is made from a yellow-flowered weed called tansy. Homeopaths give it for worms in the gut, belly cramps and period pain.
The remedy is made by mixing plant extract with liquid, then diluting it over and over. At 30C, not one bit of the plant is left. What you take is sugar, water or alcohol.
No trial has shown that it works. In tests, homeopathy does not beat a dummy pill. Long use in the past is not proof that a remedy works.
One warning matters most. The raw plant and its oil are poisons. They can cause fits and can end a pregnancy.
No one has shown how this remedy could work in the body.
Homeopathy uses a rule called "like cures like". Raw tansy can cause fits and gut pain. So a tiny dose is said to ease those same things.
Makers shake the liquid hard at each step. They say this leaves a trace of the plant's action behind. Chemistry and physics give no support for this idea.
At 30C there is nothing of the plant left to act on you. Any change you feel is most likely a placebo effect (you feel better because you expect to).
Most shops sell small sugar pills soaked in the dilution. Drops in water and alcohol are also sold.
Strengths are printed as 6C, 30C or 200C. The bigger the number, the more the plant was diluted. At 6C and above, no plant matter is left.
Mother tincture, 1X, 2X and 3X are different. They are alcohol extracts of the raw plant and can hold thujone. Treat them as the herb itself, not as a homeopathic pill.
Tansy has a long record in Europe. Folk healers used it to expel worms and to keep bugs and moths away. Cooks once baked its leaves into Easter cakes.
The remedy entered homeopathy in the 1800s. Followers of Samuel Hahnemann took it and wrote down what they felt.
It has always been a minor remedy. No school of homeopathy treats it as a first choice.
Some reactions to Tanacetum vulgare need urgent care. Call your local emergency number or go to an emergency department straight away — do not wait to see whether it passes.
Get emergency help straight away if someone has swallowed tansy oil, raw tansy or strong tansy tea. Call an ambulance or a poison centre.
Go to hospital now if you have a fit, cannot stop vomiting, have yellow skin or eyes, pass little or no urine, or feel your heart racing or skipping.
See your doctor within a few days if worms, belly pain or period pain keep going, if the pain gets worse, or if you are pregnant and have taken anything containing tansy.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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