DOSE:		inhaled	Wormwood	(ground / crushed)
		transdermal	Wormwood	(tincture)

BODY WEIGHT:

225 lb

My Wormwood Experience

I’d like to share my own experience with Wormwood. I am not a doctor, nurse or any sort of licensed medical practitioner, but I have been studying and safely practicing herbology for 20yrs. I have stacks of books on medicinal herbs and about 2yrs ago was reading thru one of my books and came across some information about Wormwood. It mentioned that it is used to flavor and color the drink absinthe but I wanted more in depth information than what the book gave so I researched about 20+ articles online discussing the medicinal properties/qualities of Wormwood. I had recently purchased a herbology book that gave in depth information on how to make medicines from herbs. Most books on herbology give info about individual herbs but rarely do they give recipes and exact formulas with instructions on how to properly make herbal medicine with info on the proper dosing; be it in tincture, extract, teas, decoctions or encapsulated herbs.

After reading that Wormwood has mild pain relieving qualities and anti inflammatory properties (when used externally), I decided to use it to make an ointment using equal parts of homemade Wormwood tincture and extra virgin olive oil to treat the stiffness, pain and swelling in my arthritic knees and lower back.

I purchased a 250ml bottle of 190x Grain alcohol from the package store (liquor store on a military base) and purchased 1oz of Wormwood from a local health food market that sold medicinal herbs in bulk. I decided to grind the Wormwood to a powder before adding the alcohol to make the tincture. As I was grinding it in my mortar and pestle I accidentally inhaled some of the finely powdered Wormwood. Initially it made me sneeze quite a bit so I blew my nose. About 10 -15 minutes later I started feeling very excitable and jittery as though I had just drank an entire pot of coffee, and started to feel very warm, like I had taken 1000mg of Niacin (the flushing type). It was about 32 degrees outside and only about 55 degrees in my bedroom where I was. But I was sweating profusely and quickly stripped down to my skivvies. This feeling lasted for about an hour and a half.

Six weeks later when the Wormwood tincture had sufficiently macerated it was time to strain it for bottling. I placed a small strainer lined with coffee filters over a bowl and proceeded to pour the tincture into the lined strainer basket. I poured a portion of the strained tincture back into the bottle I used to macerate it to get every bit of the herbs out of the jar. I then poured about 1oz of Everclear into the jar and shook it up to get all the Wormwood tincture residue out.

I allowed it to strain slowly into the bowl the strainer was sitting on. When it stopped dripping from the bottom of the strainer I gathered the coffee filter edges up and began to squeeze it tightly in my hand to extract every drop of tincture. As I did this the remaining liquid in the herbs ran all over my hands, flowing over my fingers and the back of my hand, it was actually rather messy. But I was able to extract about another half ounce of tincture from the macerated herbs.

Little did I know that it would very rapidly absorb thru the skin of my hands (I now always wear neoprene gloves when straining and pressing any herbal tincture). Within about 20-30 minutes I began feeling really hot and excitable/jittery. But it was far more intense than when I accidentally inhaled the powdered herbs. I had a distinct sense of time and space being distorted. I experienced strange visuals but nothing I would consider hallucinations. The experience lasted about 3 hours and was the most unusual experience of my life.

While I do admit that I do smoke cannabis on occasion, I’ve never been fond of narcotics or psychedelics. This experience can best be described as feeling like doing shrooms and coke at the same time (I’ve only done shrooms once in my life and only a handful of times have I ever used coke).

I am well versed in how Wormwood is used medicinally and that the lowest dose is the safest dose and that prolonged use or frequent use at high dose can cause seizures and liver damage. Every herbal book I have that discusses Wormwood says it’s never safe to take more than 10-15 drops per day and never to take it for longer than 21 consecutive days. After further extensive research on Wormwood, I concluded for myself that it is best if only used externally for pain relief, inflammation, and bug bites. I use Wormwood tincture exclusively for creating salves and ointments for arthritis and sore muscles. While I know there is a large interest among the younger generation (18-25) to discover and try anything and everything they read about that can cause a LSD type experience I’d like to offer a word of warning: Thujone is indeed toxic in high doses. It can cause seizures, brain damage, liver damage, damage to the central nervous system, kidney damage, as well as mild to severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Please be intelligent in your use of Wormwood products. No ‘high’ is worth ending up in the hospital or worse yet, the morgue.

Exp Year: 2013	ExpID: 106045
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 42
Published: Jan 28, 2020	Views: 1,429
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Wormwood (50) : Preparation / Recipes (30), Alone (16)