Cina: The Homeopathic Remedy for Irritable Children, Worms, and Restless Sleep
Cina: The Homeopathic Remedy for Irritable Children, Worms, and Restless Sleep
What Is Cina? Overview and History
Cina (pronounced see-nah) is a homeopathic remedy made from the unexpanded flower heads of Artemisia cina (Levant wormseed), a plant of the Compositae (daisy) family. For centuries the raw herb was used in traditional medicine to expel intestinal worms — which is exactly how it earned the name “wormseed” — and it contains santonin, a bitter compound once used as a standard treatment for roundworm infections.
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Buy From AmazonAs an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.Samuel Hahnemann proved Cina in the early 1800s, and it has been a beloved children’s remedy ever since. In the homeopathic pharmacy the plant is potentized through repeated dilution, which removes the toxicity of the raw herb while retaining its therapeutic signature.
Today, homeopaths reach for Cina when a child is cross, restless, and irritable, with an itchy nose the child bores at until it bleeds, teeth grinding in sleep, a ravenous appetite, and twitchy nights. Kent called it “pre-eminently a child’s remedy,” and Boericke described the typical Cina child as big, rosy, and irritable, with a variable appetite. But Cina also suits sensitive, nervous adults — especially women — with similar touchiness, eyestrain, and digestive complaints.
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Buy From AmazonAs an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.The single most characteristic feature running through every Cina case is touchiness, both mental and physical: aggravated by touch, by being looked at, and by the smallest disturbance. Keep that thread in mind and the whole remedy picture follows.
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Buy From AmazonAs an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.Key Indications of Cina
Cina has a remarkably consistent symptom picture. When several of the following appear together, Cina is a strong candidate — especially in children.
Intestinal Worms: Itching Nose and Grinding Teeth
The classic Cina picture is the child with worms. The nose itches constantly, and the child rubs it, picks at it, and bores into it until it bleeds. The child grinds the teeth during sleep — sometimes with a chewing, side-to-side motion even before teeth arrive — and there is often a pale, sunken face with dark rings around the eyes and a white or bluish ring around the mouth. Add a hard, bloated abdomen with twisting colicky pain around the navel, and the picture is complete. Homeopaths find Cina most useful against roundworms (lumbrici), whose effects its symptoms most closely match.
Irritability and Tantrums in Children
The Cina child is “hungry, cross, ugly, and wants to be rocked,” as Boericke put it. Nothing pleases this child for long: he desires many things but rejects everything offered, and he is easily offended by trifles. He does not want to be touched, crossed, or carried — yet he wants to be carried and kept busy, and the first touch that picks him up makes him scream. This contradictory touchiness is the keynote: “wants to be carried, but the first touch aggravates.”
Restless Sleep with Teeth Grinding
Sleep is deeply disturbed. The child tosses about the bed, twitches and jerks, cries out, screams, and talks in his sleep, waking in fright from dreams of dogs, phantoms, and frightful things. Night terrors are common. Two positions are characteristic: sleeping on the hands and knees, or flat on the abdomen — getting on the belly to sleep is a well-known Cina indication. He grinds his teeth through it all and may wet the bed (bed-wetting with an itchy nose, great hunger, and restless sleep is a classic combination).
Cough and Chest Complaints Worse at Night
Cina covers several cough patterns: a gagging cough in the morning after rising, and a short, hacking cough at night. The cough can be spasmodic — most famously in whooping cough, where violent, recurring paroxysms are triggered by a tickling sensation “as of a feather” in the throat. The child is afraid to speak or move for fear of bringing on a paroxysm, and after coughing he moans, gasps for air, and turns pale. Swallowing may produce an audible gurgling from the throat to the stomach. As with everything else in Cina, the cough is worse at night and from pressure on the throat.
Digestive Complaints with Cravings
Appetite is a keynote. The Cina patient is hungry shortly after a meal, with a digging, gnawing, ravenous hunger — the child who has eaten all he can hold still cries for the bottle, or vomits his food and immediately reaches out for more. There are cravings for sweets and for “many and different things.” Yet eating often makes things worse: vomiting or diarrhea can follow immediately after eating or drinking, and the vomited milk is sour, giving the child a sour “worm breath.” The abdomen is hard and bloated, with twisting pains around the navel, and the stool may be whitish mucus like small pieces of popped corn, preceded by pinching colic. Despite the turmoil, the tongue often stays clean.
Convulsions in Children
Cina is a classic remedy for convulsions in children, especially at night or when triggered by a disordered stomach. The child may convulse after eating, with the head drawn back, glassy eyes, and frothing at the mouth, marked by screams and violent jerkings of the hands and feet, twitching limbs, and a stiff body. Kent notes that some Cina children cannot even be punished or frightened, because the disturbance throws them straight into a convulsion. This is a serious symptom: any child with convulsions needs immediate medical attention, and treatment should be guided by a qualified practitioner.
Constitution and Personality: The Cina Child
The Cross, Angry Child Who Wants to Be Carried
Picture the Cina child as a small storm cloud: cross, easily offended, and touchy in both senses. He demands to be carried but is aggravated by touch, looking, or seeing strangers — and that paradox is the heart of the remedy.
The Obstinate Child
There is a streak of obstinacy in the Cina child. He refuses what he asked for moments before, rejects everything offered, and insists on having things his own way. He is naughty and knows it — Kent describes an “abnormal consciousness, as if having committed some evil deed.” Punishment is useless and can trigger convulsions. Parents often describe these children as “difficult,” though underneath the tantrums they are usually anxious, whiny little souls who simply cannot tolerate stimulation.
The adult Cina patient — more often a woman — shows the same touchiness in grown-up form: sensitive to noise, light, and company, worse from eye strain and close work, easily offended by trifling jokes, and prone to nervous exhaustion, headaches, and digestive upsets after any emotional disturbance.
Modalities: What Aggravates and Relieves
Understanding modalities — what aggravates and what relieves — is key to prescribing Cina confidently.
Aggravated by: touch, looking, strangers, night before midnight, heat, cold air, cold drinks, yawning, reading eyes, after eating, emotional disturbance.
Relieved by: lying on the abdomen, rocking, gentle motion, rolling head, eye rubbing, stooping (relieves headache).
The “worse from heat” modality is especially important: Cina children often flare up in summer, with fever, green or white diarrhea, and vomiting. In a Cina fever the face is characteristically pale and cold while the hands are warm.
Dosage and Potencies
Cina is available in several potencies, and choosing the right one depends on the situation. Homeopathic remedies work on the principle of “like cures like,” and the potency influences how the remedy acts, not what it treats.
- Cina 6C is a gentle, low potency for acute physical symptoms like an itchy nose or restless night, and can be repeated freely under guidance. Low potencies act closer to the physical level.
- Cina 30C is the most common all-round potency for children’s complaints, especially for irritable, wormy children with disturbed sleep. A single dose or two is usually enough to see if it’s working. Boericke recommended the 30th for nervous, irritable children.
- Cina 200C is a high potency for deeper prescribing — the child with a strong Cina personality, recurrent complaints, or history of worms and convulsions. A single dose is typically given and left to work; repetition is decided by a practitioner.
As a general rule, give one dose (three to five small pellets), observe the response, and do not repeat while improvement continues. Stop the remedy if symptoms change or new symptoms appear, and seek professional advice for anything more than a simple, short-term complaint. Chamomilla or Camphor are listed as antidotes if a dose ever seems to disagree. Keep pellets away from strong smells — coffee, mint, and camphor can interfere with the remedy’s action.
If you are looking to keep Cina in your home medicine kit, here are a few options:
Cina vs Similar Remedies
Cina shares territory with several other remedies, and telling them apart makes prescribing more accurate. Here are the four most useful comparisons.
Cina vs Chamomilla
Both belong to the irritable, “wants to be carried” child — and both children scream and demand. The difference: the Chamomilla child is violently irritable, hot and thirsty for warm drinks; the Cina child is touchy, worse from being touched and looked at, and has a pale, cold face. Chamomilla children want to be carried and are soothed by being rocked; Cina children want to be carried but are aggravated by the first touch. Chamomilla is often linked to teething; Cina to worms. Kent summed it up: Cina is “not so intensely irritable as that remedy, yet he must be carried.”
Cina vs Staphisagria
Staphisagria (stavesacre) is another remedy with a history in worm complaints, and Clarke lists it alongside Cina for ravenous hunger. The personality contrast is the clearest guide: the Staphisagria child is sulky, reserved, and brooding — he suppresses his anger, feels his dignity wounded, and is worse from indignation and from the memory of an insult. The Cina child is the opposite: openly cross, demanding, and noisy, with no hidden resentment. If the child lets it all out and wants to be carried, think Cina; if the child goes quiet, clams up, and nurses a grievance, think Staphisagria.
Cina vs Tuberculinum
Tuberculinum children are restless, discontented, and never satisfied — they grind their teeth at night, sleep badly, and want constant change, new toys, and new places. Like Cina, they can be irritable and destructive, but the key difference is the reaction to being held: the Tuberculinum child wants to be on the move and hates being constrained, while the Cina child demands to be carried and is worse from being looked at. Worm signs (itching nose, boring at the nose, white ring around the mouth) point strongly to Cina; a child who is emaciated, destructive, and driven by a craving for change points to Tuberculinum.
Cina vs Santoninum
Santoninum is the alkaloid extracted from wormseed. Both remedies treat worms, but Santoninum creates visual and urinary signs — a yellow vision, confusion of colors, and saffron‑orange urine. If such signs appear, Santoninum is the more pointed choice; otherwise Cina, with its emotional touchiness, fits better.
Safety Notes
Two safety points matter with Cina.
First, worm infections need proper diagnosis and treatment. A child with suspected worms should see a doctor, because some “worm symptoms” can have other causes. Homeopathy can complement treatment but should not replace medical care.
Second, raw wormseed is toxic — but the potentized remedy is safe. Raw wormseed contains santonin, which in large doses can cause poisoning. The homeopathic remedy is prepared through serial dilution, so no toxic amount remains. Cina 6C, 30C, or 200C pellets contain only a medicinal dose and are safe when used as directed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Cina only for children with worms?
No. While best known as a worm remedy, its picture — touchiness, irritability, restless sleep, ravenous hunger, and sensitivity to touch and being looked at — makes it useful for many children’s complaints. Kent said that when guided by symptoms, the patient will be cured and the worms will go.
How do I know if my child needs Cina?
Look for: an itchy, picked‑at nose, grinding teeth while sleeping, restless nights on the belly or hands‑and‑knees, a ravenous appetite, a pale face with dark circles and a white or bluish ring around the mouth, and a cross, touchy temper that is aggravated by touch. Two or three of these together make Cina a candidate.
Which potency?
For simple acute use, 30C is common — one dose, then observe. Use 6C for gentle repeatable symptoms, and reserve 200C for deeper prescribing, ideally under professional guidance.
How quickly does it work?
Improvement in simple acute cases can be noticed within hours to a day. Give one dose and wait; repeat only if improvement stalls and the same symptoms return.
When to see a doctor?
Always see a doctor for convulsions, high fever, severe abdominal pain, vomiting, dehydration, blood in stool, weight loss, or visible worms. Cina is wonderful when appropriate, but a careful medical assessment comes first.
