Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Teucrium marum verum is a homeopathic remedy made from cat thyme, a small Mediterranean shrub. Homeopaths use it mainly for long-standing nose trouble — polyps, a blocked or crusty nostril, constant dripping at the back of the throat — and for children who itch around the back passage because of threadworms.
It is a single drug remedy, meaning it is made from one source plant rather than a blend. The plant is soaked in alcohol and then serially diluted, which means diluted over and over with hard shaking between each step. At 30C, the strength most often sold, essentially none of the original plant is left.
Human trials do not show that it works better than placebo (a dummy treatment). Its standing comes from homeopathic tradition, and traditional use on its own is not proof that something works.
There is no accepted explanation of how this remedy could work in the body.
Homeopathy holds that a substance which causes symptoms in a healthy person can ease similar symptoms in a sick person once it is diluted and shaken. Practitioners call this "like cures like" and say the water carries some imprint of the plant.
Chemistry and physics do not support that idea, and no measurable plant material survives to 30C. Any benefit people notice is best explained by time passing, attention from a practitioner, and placebo effect.
The usual forms are small sugar pills, called pillules, and liquid drops in an alcohol base.
Common strengths are 6C, 30C and 200C. The "C" means each step diluted one part in a hundred, repeated that many times, so 30C has been through thirty of those steps.
Mother tincture (marked with the symbol Ø) and low X potencies are crude plant extracts, not high dilutions. They are a different product and need far more care.
Cat thyme has grown in Mediterranean gardens for centuries and was once sniffed as a powder for a stuffed-up nose.
Samuel Hahnemann tested it on healthy volunteers and published what they reported in his Materia Medica Pura in the early 1800s. Homeopaths have used it since, mostly for nasal polyps and for children with worms.
That gives it a clear, recognised place in the written record of one tradition.
See a doctor if your nose stays blocked for more than a few weeks, if only one side is blocked, or if you get nosebleeds, facial pain, numbness or changes in your sight or smell. Get help the same day for a high fever with severe facial pain or swelling around an eye. For a child, see a doctor if itching at night carries on after worming treatment, or if there is blood, weight loss or poor sleep night after night. Anyone who has taken a crude Teucrium extract and notices yellow skin or eyes, dark urine, pain under the right ribs or unusual tiredness should get urgent medical help, as these can be signs of liver injury.
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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