My experience with Kambo.

Phyllomedusa bicolor or giant leaf frog from the Amazonian forest, has been used for centuries by local tribes to enhance their hunter skills. Its first tribal use was described in 1925, and included the first effects after administration of the secretion being vomiting and nausea. Since the end of last century Kambo was introduced in the USA as a healing intervention to cleanse the bodily systems. Research conducted since the 1980’s has shown the chemical makeup of kambo to contain short chains of amino acids, known as peptides, that affect gastrointestinal muscles and blood circulation as well as stimulate the adrenal cortex and pituitary gland in the brain. While there are no clinical studies that definitively back up kambo’s efficacy, the properties of kambo peptides suggest it may be a promising treatment for the following conditions:

• Depression

• Migraines

• Blood circulation problems

• Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease

• Vascular insufficiency

• Organ diseases

• Cancer

• Fertility problems

• Deeply rooted toxins

• Chronic pain

• Addiction to opiate or prescription painkillers (Kambo reduces physical pain, thus helping people kick their addictions to other painkillers)

• Fever and infections

I myself had extreme back pain yesterday and it did reset my gut microbiome and help my chronic pain that I am pretty sure is a result of not letting go of frustration.

Those of you who have listened to my podcast and read my blogs know I have worked with many plant medicines before but this one I intentionally put off because I abhor the thought of throwing up. I also want to give you accurate information, this is not a psychedelic substance in the technical sense, but it is an indigenous Amazonian medicine that is often grouped alongside traditional psychedelic plant medicines (such as ayahuasca and huachuma). I really do not like feeling uncomfortable in my body and purging, so I put this one off as long as I could.

I am an intuitive oracle and I can channel medicines without imbuing them. When I tried to feel into the experience the day before I did it turned out to be quite insightful and also fantastically accurate. When I do this for clients I do it before recommending any plant medicine. I simply sit down in a quiet place and tune in to the plant, or in this case the frog and asked it to show me what my experience would be like. I didn’t  feel the physical experiences per se but I still get an intuitive idea of what the experience will be like for me or someone else. I can also fast forward or rewind to get more insights in particular places that would appear challenging. As soon as I sat down and asked the question out loud I felt this intense opiate like rush which quickly turned into a niacin like flush that brought me back to the time when I micro-dosed the stammets stack protocol for microdosing psilocybin Using lions mane and niacin flush to help stimulate neurogenesis. I could hear my heart beating in my ears and even in the vision it was pretty intense so I knew I was in for quite an experience. To tell you a little bit more about why people administer this medicine and why it’s so effective it’s because of the bioactive peptides.

Kambo has sixteen different bio-active peptides: Adenoregulin, bombesin, bombesinnona peptide, a bradykinin derivate, caerulein, deltorphin, neurokinin B, phyllomedusin, phyllocaerulein, phyllokinin, phyllolitorin, preprotachykinin B, ranatachykinin A, sauvagine, T-kinin and urechistachykinin.

Adenoregulin is a 33 amino acid antimicrobial peptide which shows lethal effects against filamentous fungi, as well as a broad spectrum of pathogenic microorganisms. Bombesin is a 14-amino acid neurohormone polypeptide, with a wide range of physiological effects in the brain, lungs, and GI tract. Bombesin regulates gastrointestinal hormone release and gastrointestinal motility. Caerulein and phyllocaerulein, a caerulein-like peptide both identified in kambo.Phyllocaerulein is virtually indistinguishable from caerulein in bioassay and physiological effects, but appears to be somewhat more potent than caerulein when applied to tissue. In one study, in vivo treatment with phyllocaerulein resulted in a prolonged fall of blood pressure, contraction of the gall bladder and of the ileum which stimulated gastric acid secretion, and stimulated pancreatic secretion.

Caerulein has also been identified from other anuran (frog) skin extracts and found to elicit a number of effects including analgesia, changes in mood, sedation, satiety, and antipsychotic effects.

Deltorphin possesses very high affinity and so activity as an agonist for the mu opioid receptor. It also has an unusually high blood brain barrier penetration which produces extreme analgesic effects even in animals when administered, it belongs  in the family of tachykinin peptides. Neurokinin B is implicated in a variety of human functions and pathways such as the secretion of gonadotropin releasing hormone. Additionally, NKB is associated with pregnancy in females and maturation in young adults. This is probably why there are a lot of amazing stories about women having problems being able to conceive, Were finally able to conceive and sustain a pregnancy after doing kambo.

Phyllomedusin is the peptide responsible for the deep purging effect and it causes contraction of the muscles in the gastrointestinal tract, while activating salivary glands, the stomach, small and large intestine, pancreas, and gallbladder. It is also a vasodilator (opens up the vascular/vein system) and assists in crossing the blood-brain barrier. Medusins are also anti-fungal and anti-microbial which invariably contributes to the skin clearing effect which can be seen after a Kambo session. Dermaceptins are highly effective anti-microbial peptides that have been studied to kill cancer cells and reportedly also have the ability to destroy the coated wall of the HIV virus and other coated membrane viruses. Some studies have suggested that caerulein may be useful in the treatment of schizophrenia, but there are conflicting results about the antipsychotic effects.

The first step is fasting for 8 hours prior to the Kambo experience. I had to drink 2 liters of water and then my practitioner administered 3 burns on my spine, which isn’t as bad as you think. It stings for sure, but it passes quickly. About two minutes later he administered the first ball of the frog toxin and put it on the open wound which are called gateways. Kambo is frog poison, and it makes you feel uncomfortable. People don’t take Kambo to have fun, but to purge, cleanse, and heal themselves. The poison crosses the blood brain barrier and at first you feel an opiate like feeling then right around the corner was the intense flush and if you have ever taken niacin you can hear your own heart beating and you can feel the heat start to move through your body. In my experience I was doing it with another person in the moment he started to purge I started to throw up. He administered the last three balls to my spine and I started to feel quite dizzy.

It was important to me to stay sitting upright so I didn’t get “frog face” which Is where your face swells up. I had the purge bucket between my legs and probably only 15 minutes passed and I was feeling intensely dizzy like I was about to pass out. With kambo you are supposed to keep the venom on until you hit bile or until you get close to passing out. After he wiped the venom off I laid down and fell into a deeply restful sleep for about 20 minutes. What I felt afterwards was an intense energy unlike anything I have felt in a long time. I felt 20 years old again. My back pain was gone and I felt amazing. The back pain remained gone for 3 days and it only came back when I had to get in a car to drive to Texas. Kambo was an intense but beautiful experience I can say was in fact very spiritual and calming to my soul. I was going through a lot of relationship problems at the time and it put me in a very calm space where I was very focused and alert but had quieted my mind. Soon after my experience I enrolled in a program to become a certified practitioner. I fell in love with this medicine because of the way it made me feel afterwards. I think it is amazing and there has only been one other medicine that really spoke to me in this way and that was DMT. It’s as if I didn’t choose it, it chose me. If you are interested in Kambo therapy please email me at kirsten@psychicbabes.com