I’m in an Airbnb in some suburban sprawl strip mall vortex just off a major thoroughfare, sandwiched between adult shops, taquerias, and beauty supply stores. It’s a rare, not at all scenic area of Colorado—and an incongruous locale for me to take Kambo, the glue-like toxic secretion released on the skin of a rain forest monkey frog that’s now trending among experimental wellness afficionados drawn to its hard-won benefits. 

It’s been over a year since my last Kambo experience in Grass Valley, California. I was in a rough place my first time: Recently separated, living (half the time) with my two kids as well as two roommates with whom I felt like the perpetual third wheel. My mother had just died. The pandemic exacerbated the loneliness permeating my days. Dating in the age of Covid felt strangely dangerous—but to not date, to resign myself to a life devoid of adult affection, meant irreversible atrophy. 

In short, I was depressed. 

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Doing Kambo that first time, I was struck by its gift: A return to essence, to who I was before my inner narrative got hold of me. In the ruddy afterglow of Kambo, diminishment dissolved. Something shifted. I was lighter. Buoyant even. And the sense of inner benevolence remained.

Since that first time, much has changed. With the inheritance from my mother, I bought a house. My kids seem to have come through the crucible of divorce. I am dating a man who makes me believe in kismet, as if, as the poet Rumi said, he had been inside of me all along. Still, I couldn’t shake the sense of having plateaued, energetically. The nightly drinking hadn’t helped, either. Dull verging on complacent, I was ready for a change. 

Enter Kambo take two. 

I found Boulder Kambo online and the website appealed to me, professional but not overly slick. Jason Fellows and Kelly Lamb, the main practitioners, came across as sincere, sacred medicine guides. Fellows, who was formerly in the military, discovered Kambo while exploring the Amazon jungles in Peru. He told us that after the first time he took Kambo he slept through the night for the first time in years. Lamb, who shone as an athlete and student during her academic career, found her way to plant medicine as way out her crippling heroin addiction. 

I signed up to do a round in December 2021, but because it was less than four weeks since I had gotten my Covid booster, Fellows insisted I wait, as per the terms of their extensive waiver. This adherence to protocol impressed me. These guys were not messing around. I waited till the next month’s session, in the meantime giving up alcohol for that sober curious experiment called Dry January.

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Debunking the Detox Hype

A few weeks into the new year, I found myself sitting in a living room in suburbia with two others, waiting for my round of Kambo to commence. Because Fellows and Lamb live in Creede, Colorado—a mountainous town in the southwest corner of the state—they make the trek to the Denver/Boulder area every month and rent an Airbnb for three nights to host several rounds of Kambo ceremonies each morning, staggering groups so there’s not more than four in each ceremony.

The previous group was positively languid, in no hurry to get anywhere. A red plastic bucket sat in front of each of them, for purging. The two women were just finishing their session as my group, the second session, had arrived.

I hadn’t eaten since the night before and hadn’t had much water that morning, as instructed. Only enough to wet my mouth. I asked Fellows about this, because typically you are told to drink a lot of water before Kambo. 

“The main idea behind drinking water is to get people to purge. But Kambo is not the detox medicine many people mistake it for,” he told me. “It’s for vitality, enhancement, vigor, stamina—not a vehicle for detox.” 

Turns out all the purging hype was a bit misguided: “Biologically, detoxing doesn’t work that way,” Fellows went on. “Any toxin that moves from the digestive tract has to move through the body’s natural detox pathways, the kidney and the liver, which takes roughly 6 to 8 hours. Kambo can strengthen the detox pathways but Kambo itself does not remove toxins from the body.” 

I know Fellows doesn’t have any formal medical training, but this was reassuring to hear. The first time I did Kambo I didn’t vomit; I wondered if I had missed out on a critical aspect of the ceremony. It’s true that a side effect of Kambo can be the need to vomit or defecate. But this is incidental, not the main attraction. I eyed the one small bathroom and wondered what would happen if all of us got the urge at the same time. Fellows reassured me that he was staggering the doses so that wouldn’t be an issue. 

“Everybody is always afraid they are going to shit themselves, but in all the years I have been doing this, it hasn’t happened once,” he says. “That you know of,” Lamb added, laughing. 

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Why Try Kambo?

Although there is a dearth of research on Kambo, many proponents claim it triggers an immune response that can heal a wide swath of conditions—everything from infertility to cancer. However, Fellows has a more clear-eyed take on it. 

“Most of my clients use Kambo for psychological purposes, such as warding off depression or anxiety without the use of daily medication,” he says. “It’s subjective to the individual, but I have also seen it be very effective for mental health, Lyme disease, chronic fatigue, PTSD, intrusive thoughts, and insomnia. But the real magic of Kambo is that is brings the body back into homeostasis via its bio-active assortment of peptides. Many mental and physical health issues are due to the body being out of balance. Kambo is the rebalancer.” 

About those peptides: A 2018 article, published in the International Archives of Clinical Pharmacology, referred to Kambo containing 16 bio-active peptides. These peptides are attributed to beneficial effects that range from increased stamina and focus to a sense of calm and even euphoria. Whatever the mechanisms of action, I was eager—and, full disclosure, hella nervous—about how Kambo would work on me this time. 

Inside a Kambo Ceremony

Fellows describes the sequence of the kambo ceremony’s events. He would start by putting sananga, Amazonian eye drops, into our eyes. While not mandatory, he explained how it sets the stage for what would follow—and he didn’t mince words when it came to how it might feel, comparing it to rubbing red chili in your eyes. 

“Surely, you’re exaggerating,” I say, “so when we actually do it it’s not that bad.” Lamb, unreassuringly, chimes in with “he’s telling the truth.” I can feel myself tensing up. But there’s a reason for the sananga, Fellows says. The brief minute of intense burning requires relaxation rather than resistance. The same will hold true for the Kambo to follow. 

After the sananga, Fellows will make four small blister points with a stick of lit incense to apply the secretion. He tells us he will put the frog poison on a test point to gauge our response. If we tolerate it well, he’ll apply secretions to the other three points. If we feel at that point like we need to throw up, he advises us to drink some water, which makes retching easier. 

The initial onrush of symptoms is a flush of heat, redness of the face, quickly emerging nausea and vomiting, and dizziness. Fellows also mentions pressure in the head, buzzing in the ears, and tingling or cramping in the extremities. These sensations last approximately 5-7 minutes followed by a 10–15-minute period of flu-like symptoms, predominantly marked by weakness, achiness, and nauseas. 

“Are you afraid of the flu?” Fellows asks us. One woman says yes. “That’s an honest answer,” I say. We all laugh and the tension breaks. After resting for 30 minutes or so, Fellows says, the ceremony ends with a round of hape, a shamanic version of snuff, comprised of various sacred plants, tree ashes, and an uncured form of tobacco, that he will blow into our nostrils through a pipe.

With the stage set, we take our places on floor loungers. The shades are drawn, and chants interspersed with flute music play on the speakers. I watch the woman, the one who was afraid of the flu, grimace during the eye drops. The pain seems intense but bearable. Her silent fortitude gives me courage. Fellows tells her to relax into the pain. 

Now it’s my turn. The eyedrops hurt like hell and I curse out loud. But then the pain is over, and the ensuing relief yields its own pleasure, alongside a gratifying sense of self-mastery. The woman next to me has started to heave in response to the Kambo. Fellows reassures her she is almost through.