Effects - Physical Healing through Cactus experiences

[helikophis]

Perhaps this should go into the experiences thread, but it seems like distinct enough a topic to get its own thread. So, here it is.

This is a thread for people to post their experiences relating specifically to healing of illness and physical conditions that can be attributed to consumption of mescaline cactuses.

SWIM thought of this story when he was dictating my post on this thread to me last night:

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/sho...802#post568802

Here it is:

I have been a lifelong sufferer of moderate psoriasis. For those of you who don't know what psoriasis is, it is an immune-mediated skin condition in which skin cells are overproduced, resulting in flaky, peeling, silvery bits of dead skin growing off of inflamed, red, itchy patches. It is often centered on the joints, and can appear around wounds and areas of skin irritation. The outbreaks resemble eczema and herpes-simplex viral infection. It is not contagious.

Psoriasis is associated with a form of arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and Alzheimer's-like brain plaques. It can range from a minor irritation, to a crippling disability. As an inflammatory autoimmune process, it is related to Lupus and other disorders. The causes are not fully understood, but it travels in families, and is sometimes associated with viral infections.

There's plenty more info to be found on the web, if the readers are interested.

Anyway, my story. As a newborn I had an episode where it appeared at my belt meridian and quickly covered my whole torso. That cleared up after a few weeks, and it has never gotten to that extreme again, but ever sense then it has come and gone in cycles. At first the condition was centered around the belt and navel regions, but as time went on patches appeared on three places on my scalp, on my elbows and later on my right knee.

In 2006 I was walking through my house in the middle of the night, and I walked into a coffee table, which someone had left out of place, in directly in front of the door. My shin was scraped, I cursed and clenched my teeth, and didn't think much of it. But it never really healed properly. It became itchy, and the patch of psoriasis on my knee sort of skipped its way down there. After about three months it was a full-blown patch, which gradually grew as the months went by. Previous to this, my psoriasis had been mild for several years, although the patch below my right kneecap was a source of constant irritation.

Around June 2007, the expansion of the new psoriasis on my right shin accelerated. By winter solstice of 2009 it had merged with the patch on my knee, and covered the whole yang (front/outside) side of my right calf. The patch was about the size of half a sheet of regular A4 paper. Also, system-wide psoriasis and inflammation was at the highest point it had been since childhood. The patches on my elbows had grown into little archipelagos of psoriasis, covering about 25% of the outside of my upper arms, each about the size of a dollar bill. The patches on the back and right side of my head covered maybe 15% of my scalp, about the size of three one-ounce silver coins. A new patch formed under the left knee, although this was quite small, only about the size of a dime.

This is by no means an extreme case of psoriasis, but it was certainly unpleasant, and interfered with normal activities, although I didn't let it stop me from much. Over the years I had tried various treatments, including sunlight; UV; topical steroids; herbal ointments; coal tar ointment; internal herbal treatment, including slippery elm bark, tisanes of blood purifiers/alteratives such as burdock and red clover, and some kind of Chinese pill for yang conditions; and dietary changes, including three years of vegetarianism. Success was varied. By far the most effective treatment was coal tar, although I was reluctant to use it properly because of its carcinogenic properties. A vegetarian diet seemed to help; the patches didn't increase in size at all during that time, and decreased slightly, but did not result in them clearing up completely. By the time of this story I had been back on meat for over a year.

The main problem was scratching. Whatever the underlying issues involved, and no matter what the circumstances of a patch's first appearance were, what keeps them going and growing was scratching. They would be inflamed and itchy, I would scratch them, causing more irritation, and they would gradually get worse. The scratching fed off itself. Often I would leave my leg raw and bloody. It was distracting, painful, and ugly. Ah but the pleasure of the scratch, of that instant of relief before the pain set it, that was indescribable ecstasy. It was an addiction and a very deeply ingrained habit.

Wow this story is getting much too long, apologies. Anyway, early in January 2008, I ate several grams of powdered cactus. I don't know what strain or species of cactus it was, it was given to me powdered. I'm not even really sure how much I ate. I don't even really know how much it weighed; it may have been a half ounce to an ounce. Maybe two? Although I was very familiar with psychedelic experiences in various forms, this was my first and (to date) only experience with cactus. It was, as these things tend to be, quite a powerful experience. I won't go into detail as I've already written enough, and the experience is not what I'm writing about, really.

During the course of the night I came to the decision that the scratching had to stop. Now I had come to this decision several times before in normal consciousness, and no matter the determination of the moment, it had never stuck. But during the trip, I realized: the scratching was finished. Of course it was still up to me to carry it through, but I knew that I would. The scratching, which had until that point been a habitual, almost obsessive thing, stopped immediately. Now, over a year later, it has not recurred. I have idly scratched at the old spots a few times since, but very few times, probably less than 10, and all have been mindfully quenched.

At the same time I stopped scratching I started an intensive treatment with coal tar on the calf, arm, and knee patches. In the past this had never been effective because it was counteracted by more vigorous scratching, which the coal tar encouraged, because the itchiness is always the worst when the patch is healing. The patch on my calf/right knee shrank rapidly, going from threatening to envelop my whole leg, to a tiny, persistent patch in about three months.

In another month the last remnant on the leg disappeared. The patches on my arms shrank to a single dime-sized patch on either elbow, which remain today. They are not irritating, and were no longer responding to the coal tar, so when the leg patches were completely gone, I stopped coal tar treatment on my elbows as well. They have not grown at all since.

Of course it could be argued that it wasn't the cactus that put the psoriasis into remission, it was the the coal tar. And on some level this is the truth. But I firmly attribute the cure to the cactus. I had been using the coal tar and similar ointments for several years, with poor results, because I was not committed to breaking my bad habits and not doing the things that I knew were hurting me. The mescaline experience forced me to confront myself and honestly assess my behavior and the reasons behind it. It also enabled me to make the decision that I knew I had to make, in truth, and being honest to myself.

I am very grateful for this experience, and hope the cactus has brought similar healing to many other people, and will continue to do so!

That's the end of what SWIM had to say. I apologize again for the extremely long post. I hope that other people will post similar stories!

Thanks.