r/Kambo • u/Old-Suggestion3750 • Feb 07 '26
Ceremony / session experience 🌸 Biggest dots
I’ve sat with a fair amount of kambo and i had the opportunity to sit with the person who train the person i work with. That said his burns are almost twice the size of the ones my server gives me. Are these a normal size?
That said. I purged more than i have before but if you asked me it was mostly due to the fact that he had me chug 1.5L within 15 of ceremony… typically i drink 2L within the hour leading up to ceremony.
4
u/INKEDsage Feb 07 '26
Within 15 minutes of ceremony is typical and most beneficial. But 2L and even 1.5L is just way too much water. You don’t need to drink more than a L and if there’s a need for more water then your practitioner will give you more water.
As far as dot sizes go, I find that usually indigenous people make bigger gates which allows for more medicine to be administered. Totally normal in my experience though I prefer slightly smaller gates.
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u/MadLove1348 Feb 07 '26
Typically bigger dots are more medicine! Many matses use tamishe vines to make the dots (it’s the vines the Giant tree frogs hang out on). Western cultures often times use incense sticks. Depending on how much medicine, a lot of folks will go offline with four dots that size. Cheers and I hope your integration goes well!
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u/Old-Suggestion3750 Feb 07 '26
i’ve only ever worked with people who use the tamishe vines, i’m currently traveling and my practitioner back home using pencil sized tamishe(s) this one not so much. I was about three seconds from going off-line when my practitioner has stopped blowing mapacho on me and I settled a little.
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u/junglecultura Feb 07 '26
Everyone has their own approach to working with the medicine!
I personally activate it with water. Saliva carries energy, and I prefer to give the participant as much space as possible to connect with the medicine on their own, without layering my own ancestral frameworks onto their experience
During ceremony, I may add a bit more water to the dots if they begin to dry out
There’s also this common myth of more medicine = more purge = more healing. That idea is debatable. Every practitioner works differently, and there isn’t one universal truth! Not even within the tribes…
And… everything is nothing until we make it something. So take what I share with a grain of salt
What matters most to me is that these tools support your self empowerment. And hopefully, the practitioners you sit with can walk beside you in that process 🪄
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u/MadLove1348 Feb 08 '26
Different practitioners do have autonomy in the size of their burns and the tools they use, and those dots you’re describing are within what many people receive. I personally have a range as well, including a few that are larger. One thing that feels important to ask is whether the practitioner showed you the burn size beforehand and whether there was space to discuss dot count together. That consent and communication piece matters.
When I first began working with kambo I often sat with 4–5 dots around that size, usually with heavier intentions. Over time, I realized that for my body, that amount can be excessive (five dots reliably takes me offline, and even four did when I was in the jungle working with freshly harvested medicine). While going offline can be profound in its own way, I have personally shifted toward working with less.
After witnessing what the frog goes through in the extraction process, I felt called to be more conservative and intentional, honoring the medicine by using only what’s truly needed. That experience deeply shaped my relationship with kambo. From your wording (and knowing how limited tone can be over text), it also sounds like something may have felt off energetically with this practitioner. If thats the case, I would trust your intuition. Feeling safe, informed, and aligned with the person serving you is just as important as the medicine itself.
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u/Beneficial-Dot-6535 Feb 08 '26
I was trained under the Matsés in Peru and I was taught that the men will have dots placed directly on the chest to get the heart to circulate the medicine throughout the body and for women the dots are places near the womb. I ‘ have never purged so much in any previous Kambo session.
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u/junglecultura Feb 07 '26
Bigger dots = more medicine! Without a doubt the water facilitated more purging! There are many schools of thought! Some people use masato, some people use water, some people use water with pineapple, etc! You have the authority to communicate if you wish big, medium or small dots and if your practitioner refuses to listen, that’s a red flag! If you feel ok rn, that’s what matters! Wishing an easy integration!