Kambo: My Experience Taking Medicinal Frog Poison

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This week I terrified my friends and family when I told them I was going to an Amazonian ceremony where a frog poison called ‘Kambo’ would be rubbed into burns on my skin.

Kambo is a sacred medicine that has been used by tribes in the Amazon for centuries. The secretion of the Giant Monkey Tree Frog has been used by the tribes as a medicine for ailments including malaria, fevers and snake bites. They also use it for clearing ‘negative energy,’ and assisting with lethargy, depression, and laziness. Hunters also claim it assists in energizing and strengthening them- allowing them to run faster with increased stamina, to be hyper-vigilant, eat less, sleep less and become more effective overall hunters. There is also evidence it is good for the immune system.

Although the research field for Kambo is in its relative infancy, the early findings are positive and back up many of these claims. Here is a link to some of them: https://iakp.org/research/

My past mental health struggles are what initially drew me to seeking out a Kambo ceremony. These struggles have led me to have a curiosity towards non-Western methods of medicine and healing, even more so recently since I had a serious withdrawal induced hiccup while attempting to come off my SSRIs.

I tracked down a practitioner in Christchurch and after a bit of back and forth I felt comfortable that he would be a safe person to facilitate the KAmbo. The practitioner, Ben, asked me not to consume alcohol from Thursday, to fast the morning of the ceremony, and to bring a blanket at pillow to the ceremony.

At the ceremony there were two other guys in attendance. One man was there because he had experienced benefits from Kambo before. He was having a stressful time getting back to China and thought the Kambo would assist with this stress. The other man (who later said he had been experiencing serious depression for two years) was there to have a “reset” to his state of mind- he said he was ready to turn a new page in his life. These men genuinely believed Kambo would work and appeared eager for its benefits, I felt as if I was in good company.

From the onset, I could tell Ben was really good at what he did. He made sure we knew what was happening at all times, and it felt like we were in safe hands. We started out with the option to have some eye drops called Sananga. Sananga contains anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties in it. I was told that this would improve vision, ground and relax me. I was also told it would be intensely painful for about a minute and this was most certainly true. I was writhing around for about 10 seconds after the initial shock of the pain, Ben advised me to breath, I thought this was good advice but because of the shock I could only managed panic gasps for air. Thankfully it came right after a minute or so and it genuinely did relax my eyes.

Next, it was time for the Kambo to be administered. Ben made 5 small burns onto the outer layer of my skin with a piece of wood. The other first timer had his Kambo administered onto his burns before me and in no time, he was yacking away violently into his bucket. During this time, it was my turn to have the Kambo rubbed on and sent straight into my lymphatic nervous system. I walked up to the sounds of intense tribal drum music and my other first timer comrade getting intimate with his bucket. I sat and the frog secretion was gently placed onto my burns.

At first, I felt nothing, but gradually my burns starting stinging more intensely. This was followed by feelings of dizziness. I then noticed a pressure behind my eyes that gradually encompassed my whole head, and a heat that spread throughout my body. I also noticed my heart rate accelerate.

 

These symptoms became more intense until I started feeling nauseous. I knew what was coming next, so I grabbed the bucket in front of me and preceded to vomit the large amounts of water I’d drank directly before for the next 10-15 minutes. This was the toughest part of the ceremony. As it obviously isn’t a psychedelic my rational mind was very much still in play, and it was talking… a lot. It was telling me I was a fucking idiot for putting myself through this voluntarily, it was telling me to never to this again, and that this was one of the most stupid ideas I’ve ever had. This part of the ceremony was both physically and emotionally demanding.

I was expecting this to happen, it had been made abundantly clear that this part of the ceremony was going to be incredibly unpleasant. Even when I emptied myself of the water, my body would be attempting to purge as I violently dry wretched. Ben encouraged me to keep drinking. I took the unpleasantness of this whole stage as an opportunity to simply observe my thoughts, to focus on the fact that this pain was temporary, and that I was going to come out on the other side stronger because of this pain. It was a good lesson to apply to day to day challenges. Ben had mentioned earlier that on rare occasions, people can experience panic attacks while taking Kambo and I think I can see why. Because of how uncomfortable it is, if you don’t remain grounded, you get caught in your panicked internal monologues and jump to worst case scenarios I can see it becoming even more difficult to deal with. This is based on my unique experience with the medicine and I could be completely wrong, but this was my takeaway.

After a while my abdominal region began to relax and I knew I had finished purging, I lay down on my pillow, pulled a blanket over myself and allowed my mind and body to rest. I lay there for a while in a semi-daze, exhausted from the purge. I felt more still than I have in a long time.

When I decided to emerge from my blanket cocoon my fellow purgers were all sitting up eating crackers and drinking tea. As we sat, we had a talk about our experiences, each of us seemed to have a unique experience- we dealt with our own personal obstacles, mental blocks and went through subtly different emotional states.

I’ve had a history of anxiety, I dealt with panic attacks in my teenage years. I still experience various levels of anxiety that seem to appear episodically despite all the work I put in, but these are generally easy to manage. I found my purge to be a lot like the Boggart in Harry Potter. The Boggart is a creature that emerges from a dark closet and turns into a person’s greatest fear. This is what Kambo did to my greatest fear- my anxiety. However, it did it in a gentle way, the Kambo allowed me to experience my anxiety in its rawest form, to observe my racing thoughts and the absurdity of what they were saying and release it all. The anxiety that pops up is a massive cause of annoyance in my life, it has sabotaged relationships, embarrassed me and held me back from achieving what I want on numerous occasions. The Kambo allowed me to see this and because it does not serve me, to release it.

I’m writing this five days after the ceremony and I have noticed several changes.

  • -          I’m getting less weird thoughts popping up (negative self-talk etc.) and when they do, I’m less inclined to follow them down a rabbit hole.
  • -          I have increased stamina when I train BJJ, last week I would gas out occasionally in training but this week I am barely puffing.
  • -          My vision is sharper, and colours seem brighter.
  • -          I feel more energetic during the day, I’m not experiencing the sluggishness I did before, and I am sleeping much deeper.
  • -          Increased feelings of overall well being, my body and mind are noticeably more at ease
  • -          Less cravings for junk food/beer etc.

As people continue to lose faith in big pharma and our pill focussed frameworks of medicine you will see them draw from other medical models like Ayurvedic and Indigenous frameworks. I predict that Kambo’s popularity will continue to grow and I look forward to allowing it work throughout my life in the future.

Below is the link Ben’s website. It has information for how to get in contact with him for sessions, and he has provided citations for the Kambo research- he describes the science a lot better than I ever could.

Website: https://www.kambostrong.nz/

Insta: @kambostrong

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kambostrong/

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