Have you heard of Kambo, the “Frog Medicine?” Kambo is the secretion of the giant green monkey tree frog from the Amazon. People use it to treat Lyme disease, and chronic fatigue, and pain. Listen to this episode as host Kendra Perry shares her thrilling journey with Kambo. Here’s a sneak peek: the locals burned off the superficial layer of Kendra’s skin because the delivery mechanism for Kambo is through the skin. From the experience, Kendra felt a deeper spiritual connection with the world. Do you long for a tangible spiritual experience? Then you’d be thrilled to listen to this episode. Tune in!
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Listen to the podcast here:
My Journey With Kambo *Frog Medicine*
If this is your first time, this episode is going to be very different than my other types of episodes. I’m going to discuss a personal story. It’s going to be my experience using Kambo, which is a frog medicine. The reason why I wanted to talk to you about this is that I posted on Instagram about my experience using Kambo and I got a ton of questions and a ton of great feedback. It seemed like a lot of people were interested in learning more about my experience with it. I’m going to give you a raw, unfiltered, TMI version of my story with Kambo. If you don’t like that thing, this is probably not the episode for you.
Basically, what Kambo is, it’s the secretion of the giant green monkey tree frog from the Amazon. The origins of Kambo come from a tribe in Brazil called the Kaxinawa. They were a tribe in Brazil. The legend goes that the people of this village fell ill. Everyone was sick. The shaman had taken a sacred plant medicine to enter a trance and communicate with the spirits of the forest. While he was in this trance, a female spirit presented him with a frog and taught him how to use it. He then brought it back to the village and it cured everyone in the village.
For thousands of years, Kambo was primarily used by indigenous and tribal people in the Amazon but in the 1990s, it started to spread around the world and has gained a lot of momentum in many years. A lot of people use it for a lot of different things. It’s very good apparently at curing physical ailments. People use Kambo for a bunch of different reasons. It has a lot of spiritual, emotional and also physical healing properties. A lot of people will use it to treat Lyme disease, chronic fatigue, chronic pain. It’s good at clearing infections and yeast from the body. It can also help you connect deeper to the spirit and help give you messages and help you uncover things that you might want to know about yourself.
While there is not any specific research on Kambo, the reason why Kambo probably works for people is that it contains a unique combination of peptides. These peptides, a lot of them have been patented for pharmaceutical use. Kambo naturally contains all of them. Kambo got onto my radar probably about a few years ago. One of my good girlfriends told me that she did it. She had been interested in doing Ayahuasca and had heard that Kambo was a good get your feet wet with spiritual medicine thing. Now, what I will tell you if you know anything about Ayahuasca, which is a psychedelic medicine is it’s very different.
I can’t speak to Ayahuasca because I’ve never done it but from what I understand, the experience is very different. Ayahuasca is psychedelic. Kambo is not necessarily psychedelic. Although, I think people do might have minor psychedelic properties with it. I have a history of abuse with drugs, to be frank with that. In my 20s, I partied a lot. I did a lot of drugs. The primary reason I did things like mushroom and LSD was to disconnect, get confidence, to numb out. I was never using it in a medicinal way. I had a lot of bad trips.
Plant Medicine To Connect More With Spirit And God
In my late 20s, when I started having all my health issues, I had to step away from partying and doing drugs and alcohol and because of that, I’ve always been very wary about doing drugs again. Obviously, I’ve had these bad trips with drugs and so, I’ve had a lot of fear around using drugs again. Over the years, as I’ve learned more about different plant medicines, I’ve started to become more open to using plant medicine as a means of getting to know myself and connecting more deeply with spirit and God.
I was interested when my friend told me about this. I thought, “That’s cool.” It appealed to me because it’s quite short, whereas an Ayahuasca trip can last multiple hours, 4 or 6 hours. Something like that but with Kambo, it’s quite quick. The whole experience, you’re usually getting there then driving home in about an hour and a half. It got on my radar and I thought it was interesting. Time passed and I was hearing different friends talk about their experience with Ayahuasca. I was becoming more interested in it. I feel like with any spiritual medicine, plant medicine, frog medicine, you get the calling to do it. It’s never something that you should do if you do not feel called to do it or you are uncomfortable. It’s not for everyone.
I was you letting my curiosity run its course. I was getting more intrigued by it. In September of 2021, for some reason, I had this moment where I was like, “I think I want to do Ayahuasca. I think I’m ready to do it.” I have a friend who was going to hook me up with this circle. The actual ceremony that was supposed to happen didn’t end up happening and that’s fine. I was thinking about it and I was like, “I’m interested in using some traditional medicine to try to learn more about myself and connect more with spirit.” I was following the stories of my mentor, Ruby Fremon. She’s been on the show twice. She’s the only person who has been on the show. Check out those episodes with Ruby.
She was posting on her stories about her facilitator training in Colorado and she was doing a Kambo facilitator training. I was like, “That’s interesting. Cool. That’s the stuff that my friend did.” Maybe a few weeks later, she was posting pictures of a room in her house that she’d set up as a ceremony space to facilitate Kambo sessions with clients. It was a very weird thing. At that moment, I got this urge and I started typing. It was out of the body. I was like, “What if I flew down to Austin, Texas and I did this with you? Is that crazy?” She was like, “No, that would be amazing. I’ll invite other people from The Thought Leader Collective.”
The Thought Leader Collective was the group program that I was in with Ruby in 2020. I got excited. If you’re Canadian, you know that traveling has become quite difficult for people who are unvaccinated. As I spoke about a few episodes ago, I am unvaccinated. In November, they were bringing in a rule that would prevent any unvaccinated person from essentially boarding a plane, boat or train. I was like, “I need to take this trip before the end of November. I’ll have no problem getting back into the country but as long as I do this before the 30th of November, it’ll be fine.”
We got it planned. Two other girls from The Thought Leader Collective decided to fly down and do it with me. I was very excited because I missed all the retreats, the in-person retreats with TLC because of COVID and everything that was going on. I have not met any of these women and I was incredibly excited. I booked a flight and I booked accommodation. I booked a million COVID tests and got excited. The US handed down a rule to say, “Unvaccinated people could no longer enter the country.” Unfortunately, I had to cancel. I was pretty upset. It doesn’t feel good. None of this stuff feels good.
Campbell Reset
The other thing to consider is that at the time, there was a natural disaster that happened in Vancouver and my flight was out of Vancouver. There was a landslide and flooding and all the highways closed during that week. Even if the rule hadn’t been handed down, I still wouldn’t have been able to go because I couldn’t get to my flight because they weren’t allowing traffic through for anyone. The landslide essentially destroyed the whole highway. It was incredibly major.
Apparently, the trip wasn’t meant to happen but I wondered. I was like, “What was that hit that I got because something called me to do that?” I realized that it was the Kambo. I was interested in trying the Kambo. I contacted my friend and I went over to her house. We had a sauna and caught up. I asked her a million questions about Kambo. I had her connect me with the woman, the facilitator who works locally. I emailed the facilitator, got a response back very quickly. All of a sudden, I had three appointments booked with her for Kambo.
What I was supposed to do in Austin, Texas, was Kambo sessions every morning for three days. It’s called a Kambo Reset. You do it every morning for three days. At that point, I had booked a bunch of things into my schedule. I wasn’t able to do 3 in 3 days but I was able to get in three in a week and that’s called a Kambo Intensive. I got that booked. It felt a bit crazy because initially when I thought I was going to do it with Ruby. I know Ruby. I trust her. I love her. She’s a friend. She’s a mentor. I didn’t have a lot of trepidation going into it. I was a little bit nervous but I was like, “Ruby’s amazing.” With this other woman, even though she came recommended by a friend, it was still a stranger.
I’ll never forget the feeling of driving to her house that first morning where I was like, “What the heck am I doing?” I was nervous. I remembered on the phone that she had said her helper would be there. I guess I’d assumed it would be a woman I didn’t ask but it was this man. All of a sudden, I felt super vulnerable. I was like, “This dude.” I knew I was going to be purging. I felt uncomfortable but I had to trust my decision and that this is what I wanted. I decided to go for it. I got there and they had a little space set up for me in the living room. They had little frog statues, candles, various gems, that thing and a blanket down. I brought my own blanket and pillow because you do purge during Kambo. I put my own blanket down.
They led me through a grounding meditation and I connected to my intention. The first day, I wanted my fatigue to heal. I asked for healing. They prepare the medicine in front of you. Essentially, what they do is they take the medicine and they blend it with wood. Wood from the Amazon because otherwise, the secretion would drip down your skin. That helps absorb it. They take incense and they poke points into your skin. They burn off the superficial layer of your skin. It’s not deep. It’s superficial because the delivery mechanism for Kambo is through the skin.
She did it on my bicep and she started me off with five points. She takes this little piece of incense and it stings a little quick burn. She burns off the superficial layer of skin. She prepares the Kambo and she comes over. She puts the little dots of Kambo onto the skin. I started feeling the Kambo immediately. It was very fast. It got hot. I had this feeling wash over me and I got hot, warm and your heart starts racing like you’re doing a cardio workout. That’s a normal part of the process. It rushes through you. You get a bit light-headed. I was sitting there and I was trying to sit with it. You start getting nauseous because the secretion is a poison. Your brain thinks it’s poison so the body wants to get rid of it. Nausea is one of the effects.
You also get a bit swollen so your throat will get a bit swollen, your lips, cheeks, your skin, in general. You get a bit puffy because it’s a vassal dilator. It puffs up. These peptides are running all through your body then you get incredibly nauseous. I forgot to say, before they apply the Kambo, they make you drink quite a bit of water. I think I drank almost 2 liters of water before because you’re going to purge. You want something to purge so you’re not dry heaving.
You get nauseous. I was incredibly nauseous. I was very disoriented. It felt horrible. I was moaning. They’re trying to get me to drink more water. I was like, “I don’t want to.” They’re like, “This is going to help. You want to purge.” I was being a bit combative but it’s interesting in this whole situation. It’s so raw. You are on your knees. You’re at your absolute edge with the pain that this causes you but you don’t care. I was like, “I don’t want the water.” I take a bit of a gulp.
Quite a long time passed and so through this whole time sohan, the facilitator, she’s singing, playing instruments. She’s singing the traditional music that goes along with us and the helper is also singing a bit too. He’s helping me, making sure I’m fine. Getting me to drink water, making sure that I’m good as we go through this experience. While I was nervous about him being there, in the end, I felt like he was my angel. He was supportive and helpful. He was there all three times and I was quite grateful that he was there to support me. Now eventually, at one point sohan said, “You can put your fingers down your throat and stretch your throat,” because I wasn’t purging on my own. A lot of people will purge immediately and you don’t need to purge. It’s not necessarily required but it does make the experience less intense because as soon as you start purging, you feel better.
First Integration
I was struggling to purge on my own. I was resisting it. Finally, I put my fingers down my throat and I purged into this bucket and it’s not a pretty purge. It’s like a primal scream purge. I purged a ton. As soon as I purged, I started feeling better. I laid down and you have this beautiful integration. They’re still playing music in the back. I didn’t get much. A lot of people get a lot of messages or downloads in their integration. This first one, the whole thing felt like a blur. It was different. I was nervous going into it and I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t get a lot in that first integration. All of a sudden, you start feeling better and you sit up.
After that first one, I was very swollen. My throat was swollen. My lips and cheeks were swollen and I had this thing called frog voice. My voice was hoarse and raspy. I felt like a bus had hit me. A lot of people, after they do Kambo will report feeling energized or strong or clear. I’m not surprised that I felt like a train hit me because that’s how I generally feel when I pretty much do any substance, even exercise sometimes. I wasn’t super surprised. What Sohan had told me was that if you are emotionally blocked, you will struggle to purge. She says she sees it more commonly with men because men tend to hold everything inside and not want to show emotion. That’s me. That’s a huge shadow for me, being afraid to be vulnerable, to show emotion, wanting to be strong. I hold onto a lot.
That’s why I struggled to purge. In the end, I had to do it myself. Some people might pass out right off the bat and might never purge. You don’t necessarily need to purge but it would be beneficial to purge quicker because it won’t be as intense. I talked to my girlfriends who did it in Austin with Ruby. The one friend who I talked to said she immediately purged. I think, “That would be so nice,” because I sat with it for quite a long time. It was interesting that the rest of the day was a write-off. I was exhausted. I was tired. The day after, I felt pretty sick. I did not feel good but then the Sunday, I had this incredible energy. I did this hike with a friend. I did a big hike. I felt great. I felt energetic. That was cool. I was grateful for that.
A few days later, I did the second one. The second one I thought would be easier because this time I was like, “I know what to expect. I know it doesn’t last that long.” The whole experience, from me taking the medicine to me sitting up and being normal again, was probably about 30 minutes. I was like, “At least I know what to expect.” I went in with the intention of surrender, wanting to let go. This time, she put seven points on me. She put more because you do develop a little bit of a tolerance to it. She put a few more. Now, this one was incredibly intense for me.
It was the most intense one, probably because she gave me more medicine but also because I couldn’t let go. My intention was to surrender. I was trying hard to surrender but what was shown to me in that session was everything that I was holding onto and I refused to let go. I’m holding on to so much. That was shown to me and that was hard to see. I couldn’t surrender. As much as I tried, I sat with that first purge for an incredibly long time. Sohan and my helper at the end said, “You held onto that for a very long time.” Eventually, she said, “Put your fingers in your throat. Stretch it out.” I purged probably two times as much as I did the first time.
In that integration, I realized that I needed to learn how to let go. I need to learn how to surrender. The reason why I’ve experienced fatigue and problems with my health is that I’m carrying everything. A lot of what I’m carrying isn’t mine. I need to figure out how to let that go. That’s some inner work that I need to do. Now, the third time was a couple of days later. This one was hard for me. I felt a lot of resistance towards doing it.
That may have been because the second one was intense. Maybe I was dreading it but maybe I was also scared about what I was going to uncover. I went for this big walk and I was like shedding tears because I was like, “I don’t want to do this.” I was feeling this incredible resistance. Now, for the third one, she wanted to give me ten but I was hesitant to take ten because the one with seven had been intense. She gave me nine but I wish I’d taken ten because I’ve realized that the more intense it is, the easier it is to purge on your own.
With this one, my intention was to let go and surrender to the medicine. I wanted to allow the medicine into my body and let it do its thing. With Kambo, people who purge might purge by vomiting but they also might poop purge. They call it bottom purge. I was surprised I hadn’t bottom purged because I’m the person who, like, I told you that was going to be TMI in this episode but like anything can give me diarrhea. My gut is sensitive. With this second one, I did have to bottom purge. They help you to the bathroom.
I had to find the humor in this. It was incredibly funny. While you’re going through the experience, they’re singing and playing instruments. They’re playing this very traditional music. They helped me into the bathroom and I’m sitting in there crapping myself on the toilet. They are literally singing, “Kambo du du du du,” like outside the bathroom. You would think that was a humiliating experience because they do leave the bathroom a cracked door, like a crack open because they want to make sure you’re okay.
Normally you would think that would be quite humiliating but you literally don’t care. I did not care but I did have clarity in my brain to be like, “This is so funny. I’m literally crapping myself in the bathroom and these people are singing music outside of the bathroom door.” It was funny but I did have this intense bottom purge again, TMI. I told you it was coming. They helped me out of the bathroom. I proceeded to top purge, purge out my mouth. I had to put my fingers down my throat so I wasn’t able to bring it on without forcing it.
In the integration for this one, it was interesting because I saw a bunch of green frogs jumping through my vision as my eyes were closed. I had a bit of psychedelic and she said that was a very good sign. After this one, again, with everyone, I felt exhausted. I felt rundown but I felt clear. I felt optimistic. I had this deep introspection. What I’ve noticed since during the Kambo is my problem seems further away.
Clarity And Introspection
If you read my episode when I talked about what had gone well and what had not gone well for me in 2021, that was episode 98, I talked to you about how I’ve struggled personally this year with everything going on in the world. Since doing Kambo, those things don’t bother me as much. They’re there but they feel far away. I have a much more positive outlook on things which I’m very grateful for. I’ve also been able to notice more things. The thing I struggled with the most is I’m in my structured mind. I’m crown and third eye heavy. I’m in my brain and I have a hard time being in my body. I think because of that, I’m bad at noticing certain things.
When I hang out with my friend Shanae, for example, she’s always having these good moments of clarity and introspection about herself and learning about herself. I’m always like, “Huh?” I feel nothing. I have these walls. These spiritual and emotional walls up. Since doing the Kambo, I’ve been able to notice a lot more things. This is me about to get very vulnerable but these are some of the things I’ve noticed. The reason I’m sharing this with you is that maybe it’ll help you too. One thing that I’ve noticed is that I do take on people’s things.
I was hanging out with one of my friends who did the Kambo in Austin. She was saying how where she got the points was itchy. I was like, “That’s interesting. Mine is not itchy at all.” As soon as I got off the phone with her, I was suddenly incredibly itchy. A few days later something popped up in my Instagram feed that was talking about myocarditis. As I read it, my heart started flickering and skipping beats. It was super weird. I was on a call. I did a cord-cutting meditation with Danielle Paige, a woman who has I started following on Instagram. She’s an astrologer. She was doing this last full moon of the year meditation. I signed up for it.
At the beginning of the call, she was having a frog in her throat. She was clearing her throat constantly. As soon as she started doing it, I started doing it. I don’t want to necessarily call myself empathic because sometimes I feel that calling yourself empathic can be very narcissistic. I’ve noticed that I think I’m taking on a lot of other people’s energies. I wonder if when I was a health coach if I was taking on a lot of other people’s sickness. As soon as I stopped health coaching, I got better quickly. It was my own sickness that got me into health coaching but I wonder if holding space for all these people who were deeply struggling with their health if I was taking on their symptoms and their elements. I wonder that.
I’ve realized that I’m going to have to come up with tools to protect my energy field from other people’s stuff because I’ve realized that I’m taking it on. That’s been an interesting insight. That’s some inner work that I have to do and I have to figure out how I’m going to move forward with that. Now, the other thing I’ve realized is I’m someone who’s had body image stuff my whole life. From what I remember growing up, my mom was always on a diet, always trying to lose weight. In high school, my group of girlfriends, we were always trying to lose weight. It was crazy because you were at your smallest size in high school. I was always an athlete. I was always fit. I did not need to lose weight but that became a big focus. That did carry me through to adulthood.
I’ve had a lot of struggles because when I started having health issues several years ago, I gained a bunch of weight that came on. I eat incredibly healthy. I’m very active but for whatever reason, my body put on this weight and I’ve not been able to lose it. I’ve struggled with that. I’ve noticed that I had a call with my friend and she was saying, “How important it is to commit to your inner work?” I was like, “I don’t even know what that means.” I realized that a big reason why I haven’t been committing to my morning ritual and inner work is that I’m obsessed with getting my steps in a day.
I still have this subconscious thing where I need to lose weight. I got to get my 10,000 steps in every day. I’ll wake up and I’ll go for a walk, even though it’s not necessarily what I want to do. I’ll go for like this hour walk so I can get my 10,000 steps in. As a result, I don’t do my breathwork, my meditation, my stretching. I don’t do the things that I know helped me evolve mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. What I’ve done is I’m trying to be more aware of what my body wants. If I want to go for a walk, I’m going to do it but I’m not going to force myself to do it. If I don’t hit my activity score on my Aura rings then that’s okay. That’s what I’m always trying to hit, my activity score.
Overall I’m very active. I ski 3 to 5 days a week. I go to the gym and I work with a personal trainer 1 to 2 times a week. Despite doing all this stuff and hitting these activity goals for the past year or two, I’m not losing weight. My body clearly wants to be the size. My body has changed. I’m in my late 30s now. I need to have acceptance and love for the body that I have. I need to stop forcing myself to do all these walks when it would maybe better serve me to meditate and do breathwork and do something that’s going to help me spiritually, mentally, emotionally.
I had that realization and this is new for me. These might maybe seem minor to you but for me, it’s a big deal because I am disconnected. I have all these internal walls that I often feel nothing. I remember briefly working with this coach. I showed up and I was expecting her to guide the session. She was like, “What are you noticing?” I was like, “Nothing. I don’t notice anything.” I was annoyed and I didn’t end up seeing her again but now I understand. She wanted to help me work through what I was noticing in myself but of course, without that conscious awareness, it’s hard to heal. I’ve noticed I’m a bit more present, a bit more noticing of my patterns and things that are in need of healing.
I’m grateful for that. I will do Kambo again. I need to let a bit of time pass to forget how horrible it is because, honestly, it’s like a death and rebirth in 20 minutes. It’s horrible. It does not feel good. There’s nothing great about it. You get some great stuff in the introspection but it’s rough. It’s called warrior medicine. It does push you to your absolute edge. I will do it again and I would like to do it three days in a row next time. I will pursue that in 2022. The other thing I’m hoping to pursue is Ayahuasca. I would like to do an Ayahuasca ceremony. This woman sohan, who I worked with, facilitates Ayahuasca. I’ve been invited to a few sittings in the winter and I think I will sign up for one of them.
That is my experience with Kambo. Should you do Kambo? I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it. I did it but you have to do your own research. I suggest going online. There’s tons of stuff about it online. You can read all about it. It’s interesting but as always, it’s important to find a facilitator that you trust and someone who knows what they’re doing and who has studied it traditionally. You also want to make sure you’re using ethically sourced Kambo and that the frogs aren’t harmed. I’m under the strong belief that with any plant medicine or spiritual medicine, frog medicine, it finds you and you get this calling to do it. It’s not something I would pursue if it doesn’t resonate with you or you don’t feel called to do it.
That’s what I have to tell you about Kambo. I hope that you liked this episode. If you are interested in learning a little bit more about Kambo, you can check out Ruby Fermon, RubyFremon.com. She’s a bunch of good resources on her website. If you’re in the Austin area, I highly recommend doing a session with her. From what I’ve heard, it’s amazing. If you want to hear and learn a little bit more about Ruby, you can read one of her episodes on the show. I’ve done two episodes with her and it’s good stuff. Check out, Ruby.
If you’re in Austin, Texas or in that area and you want an incredible experience, I highly recommend seeing Ruby. If you have any questions you want to jam out and ask me any questions about my Kambo experience, I’d be more than happy to chat with you. You can shoot me a message on Instagram. My handle is @KendraPerryInc. I hope you enjoy this episode of the show. I will see you at the same time, the same place where I help you become wealthy AF.
Important Links:
- Ruby Fremon – Past episode
- episodes with Ruby – Past episode
- The Thought Leader Collective
- Danielle Paige – Instagram
- RubyFremon.com
- @KendraPerryInc – Instagram
