What is Kambo & how it changed my life.

I want to tell you something I've never been fully comfortable sharing. Not because I'm ashamed of it but because it's gross. Like, genuinely, uncomfortably gross.

In 2019, I developed a staph infection that took over my body.

We're talking huge, painful boils mostly on my upper legs, groin area, and bum. They were so deep and so sore that I couldn't reach them myself. My then-boyfriend had to help me squeeze them out. It was humiliating, painful, and honestly pretty traumatising.

And it didn't stop there. Staph is contagious. I had to obsessively manage my clothing, my bedsheets, every surface I touched because the moment I got careless, another one would appear somewhere new.

I was living in Australia at the time. Bikini country. The land of beaches and outdoor living. And I was hiding my body under layers, ashamed to be seen.

I Tried Everything

Multiple rounds of antibiotics. Black salve. Every topical cream the pharmacist could recommend. I saw doctors, I Googled obsessively, I tried every suggestion anyone had ever heard of.

Nothing worked.

For almost a year, I lived like this. And slowly, quietly, it started to affect more than just my skin. My confidence eroded. I stopped wanting to go out. I felt like my body had betrayed me, and I didn't know how to get it back.

Then Someone Mentioned a Frog

One day, I overheard a conversation about kambo a ceremonial medicine made from the secretion of the giant monkey frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor) from the Amazon rainforest.

I didn't know what it was. I had no context for it. But something in me said: just go. Give it a try.

So I did.

My first ceremony was intense. Kambo is not gentle it purges deeply, and it's designed to. Afterward, I had a brutal headache that lasted several hours. I later learned this was a Herxheimer reaction a well-documented physiological response that occurs when harmful microorganisms die off rapidly in the body, releasing endotoxins as they go. The headache, the brain fog lifting, the intensity all of it made sense.

And from that single ceremony, the staph never returned.

I was completely shocked. After a year of failed treatments, one ceremony had done what antibiotics couldn't. I became obsessed with understanding why.

The Science Behind What Happened

Kambo contains over 20 bioactive peptides short chains of amino acids that interact directly with the body's biology. Scientists have been studying these compounds since the 1980s, and the research is genuinely remarkable.

Here's what I found when I started digging:

Dermaseptin is one of kambo's most studied peptides. It's a powerful antimicrobial compound shown in laboratory research to be effective against bacteria, fungi, parasites, and even certain viruses. Crucially, it has demonstrated activity against gram-positive bacteria — the category that includes Staphylococcus aureus. While I can't claim kambo "treated" my infection in a clinical sense, the presence of dermaseptin offers a plausible biological explanation for what I experienced.

Dermorphin and deltorphin are opioid peptides found only in kambo they don't exist anywhere else in nature. They're up to 30 times more potent than morphine at the receptor level, which explains the powerful analgesic and mood-regulating effects many people experience during and after ceremony.

Phyllocaerulein and phyllomedusin stimulate smooth muscle and support the digestive and lymphatic systems contributing to kambo's deeply cleansing effect on the body.

Adenoregulin acts on adenosine receptors throughout the body and brain, and emerging research suggests it may play a role in immune modulation and cellular repair.

What makes kambo particularly remarkable is that these peptides are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier meaning they don't just work on the body's surface or gut. They interact with the central nervous system directly, which is part of why kambo's effects go far beyond physical cleansing.

As for the candida connection kambo's purging and immune-stimulating effects may help address systemic candida overgrowth, which is known to suppress immune function and create conditions where bacterial infections like staph can take hold repeatedly. This, combined with dermaseptin's antimicrobial properties, is the best explanation I've found for what happened to me.

The Beginning of Something Much Bigger

After that first ceremony, I didn't just feel better. I felt awake.

I started assisting in ceremonies every weekend. I read everything I could find. I became increasingly in awe of what the Amazon forest holds not just in kambo, but in the entire ecosystem of plant medicines that indigenous cultures have worked with for thousands of years.

That was my first step onto this path. The path that eventually led me to become a certified kambo practitioner, to train in NLP and somatic bodywork, to guide women through the kind of deep healing I had experienced myself.

I share this story not as a promise of what kambo will do for you. Every body is different. Every journey is its own. What I can tell you is that kambo opened something in me that years of antibiotics couldn't touch not just physically, but in my relationship with my body, with healing, and with the intelligence of the natural world.

Feeling Called?

If kambo is something you've been curious about whether you're dealing with something physical, something emotional, or simply a feeling that you need a deep reset I'd love to talk.

I offer private kambo ceremonies in Amsterdam in a safe, intentional container, with full preparation and integration support.

Viva kambo. Viva las medicinas. 🐸🙏🏻

Stephanie Cornelisse is a certified kambo practitioner (IAKP), NLP coach, and yoga teacher based in Amsterdam. She guides women through ceremonial and somatic work at Chava Wild Roots.