Misc Wormwood (Thujone)

[Foreigner]

Long story short, I have parasites. It's been medically confirmed. I am revolted... but I didn't want to take the parasite drugs offered because they are so incredibly toxic that I would just rather not.

I've turned to herbalism like I usually do and made my own formula. It includes, among other things, raw wormwood. I've put it into OO gel caps, standardized to 0.4g per cap. I take one of these, three times daily, with the other herbs. It's been working because... well, without getting into TMI territory, there is evidence in the toilet. I plan to continue this protocol for up to 14 days, possibly with day breaks here and there.

My concern is that I may be starting to feel some deleterious effects from the wormwood. I have this consistent feeling of low-level drunkenness, the equivalent of one beer or less. There have been minor heart palpitations, lapses in concentration, and little uncontrollable mistakes in cognition here and there. For instance, today I turned left in an intersection while there was an oncoming car, and I am a super cautious driver who never does shit like that... but an obvious error went unnoticed. Even as I type, I am making ridiculous spelling errors with higher frequency than normal. Nothing over the top, but enough to take note of.

I know that thujone is a GABA-A antagonist which is bad news, but the research online of what the threshold for serious damage is, is inconsistent. I'm not experiencing numbness, convulsions, or anything like that. Some sites say you are fucking yourself over by taking this at all, while others say that the levels in traditional absinthe are not even enough to cause harm and it's the oil that should be avoided. I understand that long-term use is always a problem and the effects are cumulative.

I guess what I want to know is:
1) Is my dosing schedule potentially hazardous? (i.e. excitotoxicity, nerve cell destruction)
2) Can I recover from these deleterious effects or are they permanent? Am I damaging my "intellect"?
3) Bottom line... should I stop?

I'm willing to take a short term hit for a long term gain because I was mortified by what I saw in the toilet recently.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

Why not take the medications that will get rid of the parasites? At least talk to a medical professional, and tell them how you are taking wormwood.

Taken from WebMD:

WORMWOOD Side Effects & Safety

Wormwood is safe when taken in the amounts commonly found in food and beverages including bitters and vermouth, as long as these products are thujone-free. Wormwood containing thujone is UNSAFE when it is taken in large amounts or over a long period of time. Thujone can cause seizures, muscle breakdown (rhabdomyolysis), kidney failure, restlessness, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, vomiting, stomach cramps, dizziness, tremors, urine retention, thirst, numbness of arms and legs, paralysis, and death.

Not enough is known to rate the safety of using wormwood topically.
Special Precautions & Warnings:
Pregnancy and breast-feeding: Wormwood is LIKELY UNSAFE when taken by mouth in greater than food amounts. The concern is the possible thujone content. Thujone might affect the uterus and endanger the pregnancy. It’s also best to avoid topical wormwood, since not enough is known about the safety of applying wormwood directly to the skin.

If you are breast-feeding, don’t use wormwood until more is known about safety.

Allergy to ragweed and related plants: Wormwood may cause an allergic reaction in people who are sensitive to the Asteraceae/Compositae family. Members of this family include ragweed, chrysanthemums, marigolds, daisies, and many others. If you have allergies, be sure to check with your healthcare provider before taking wormwood.

A rare inherited blood condition called porphyria: Any thujone present in wormwood oil might increase the body’s production of chemicals called porphyrins. This could make porphyria worse.

Seizure disorders, including epilepsy: Wormwood contains thujone, which can cause seizures. There is concern that wormwood might make seizures more likely in people who are prone to them.

 

[spacejunk]

Stop.

If the worms (presumably?) persist - try something else.
But this doesn't sound worth it - you've probably killed the little fuckers by now anyway. Persisting this dosing regime doesn't seem to have any potential for benefits from here on in

Is there a particular reason for your 14 day dosing schedule?
I've used wormwood for similar issues once with success.

 

[Foreigner]

Why not take the medications that will get rid of the parasites? At least talk to a medical professional, and tell them how you are taking wormwood.

Taken from WebMD:

WebMD is the first hit for any herb you type into google. Their info is not exactly reliable, and it does not include historical use info.

My question is harm reduction related. I've decided not to take modern drugs for these parasites and I don't want this discussion to shift into why. I just want to know about the GABA-A qualities of thujone and if I'm seriously harming myself by taking 1.2g raw wormwood daily. The info online is inconsistent.

But this doesn't sound worth it - you've probably killed the little fuckers by now anyway. Persisting this dosing regime doesn't seem to have any potential for benefits from here on in

Is there a particular reason for your 14 day dosing schedule?
I've used wormwood for similar issues once with success.

All parasite regimens, whether they are herbal or modern, require you to dose for 14 days. The adults die fairly quickly but the eggs and cysts take time.

 

[sekio]

Thujone is rather toxic in large doses, hence it is controlled as a flavoring additive. It's a GABA antagonist/5ht3 agonist which certainly doesn't contribute to wellbeing much either.

Thujone are common in nature, especially in the genus Thuja (arborvitae / red cedar) and other cypress family trees, as well as herbs like sage.

Symptoms of intoxication from the fresh Thuja plant include vomiting, stomach ache, diarrhea and gastroenteritis followed by absorption disorders, headache, nervous agitation and chronic convulsions, and symptoms of liver and renal toxicity extending to yellow liver atrophy, arrhythmia and myocardial bleeding (51). In cases of overdose and abuse, the oral intake of Thuja extracts induced severe metabolic disturbances. Intoxication was accompanied by an irritant effect on the gastrointestinal tract, uterus, liver and kidney. Infants who ingested leaves and twigs of fresh plant showed mild gastrointestinal disorders and vomiting (24).

These reactions can be explained by the high contents of thujone in the fresh plant. This ingredient occurs in significant quantities in the essential oil fraction Thuja occ (see ‘Phytochemistry’ above) and many other plants that are part of the human diet such as Salvia folium, widely used as spice and in teas, or Artemisia pontica, for the production of vermouth wine (52). Thujone is reported to be the toxic agent in absinthe, a liqueur popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to have antinociceptive, insecticidal and anthelmintic activity (53). The acute toxicity information available for thujone was reported as follows (LD50 in mg/kg): rats oral, 500; rabbit i.v., 0.031; rabbits dermal, 5000. The lethal dose appeared at 0.2 ml/kg body weight (BW) (54). In other investigations, porphyrogenic properties or mitogenic activities were reported (55,56). The Committee on Veterinary Medicinal Products noted that the LD50 values stated for the constituent thujone were 87.5 mg/kg of BW after subcutaneous administration in mice and 240 mg/kg BW after intraperitoneal administration to rats (24). In an in vitro investigation, however, thujone was demonstrated to be non-toxic (57) and an oral dose of up to 1.25 mg thujone/kg BW is considered harmless in humans (58). Up to a single daily dose of 75 mg is reported to be safe in humans. In their opinion issued on 2 December 2002, the Scientific Committee of the European Commission stated that a 60 kg adult who consumes one litre of an alcoholic beverage containing 5 mg/l thujone, i.e. the maximum permitted level of thujone in alcoholic beverages with up to 25% alcohol, would ingest ∼0.08 mg thujone/kg BW. This intake is ~100 times lower than the no effect level (NOEL) derived from a 14 week study in rats (59).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1062158/

I would avoid habitual consumption of large amounts of wormwood / arborvitae or any other plants with large %thujone contents. They may not necessarily be toxic to everyone and in every dose, but it's likely will make you feel like shit, and you are indeed running the risk of some pretty nasty side effects.

Fortunately it seems that most common wormwood actually contains fuck-all in the way of thujone. Nothing compared to e.g. arborvitae.

In 2007, Lachenmeier and Nathan-Maister reviewed 29 analyses of the essential oils of A. absinthium and A. pontica leaves and flowers, the two species most commonly used in absinthe. They found wide variations in both oil content and thujone concentrations.4 In A. absinthium they found an average of 0.6% essential oil (±0.3%), which contained a mean of 5.8% α-thujone (±11.4%) and 12.5% β-thujone (±15.2%), corresponding to a total combined α- and β-thujone content of about 1 mg per gram of dried A. absinthium. In A. pontica they found a mean essential oil content of 0.3% (±0.1%), and the essential oil was composed of a mean of 15.4% α-thujone (±12.0%) and 1.5% β-thujone (±12.7%), corresponding to a total combined thujone content of around 0.5 mg per dried gram. Some specimens of A. absinthium contained up to 2.5 mg of thujone per gram, while some harvested in France, Spain, and Egypt contained none.4 Other research has shown substantially higher thujone levels, up to 4.8 mg of thujone per dried gram of A. absinthium.13 While β-thujone usually occurs in greater concentrations in A. absinthium, the higher-potency α-thujone is regarded as the primary psychoactive agent.14

https://www.erowid.org/plants/wormwood/wormwood_article1.shtml

~5mg of thujone per gram x 1.2 grams = 6 mg? I think people ingest more thujone in their poultry seasoning, given that sage oil can be up to 50% thujone...

Artemesinin from A. annua, aka sweet wormwood, aka quinghaosu, has a better side effect profile, I think, and is the "natural antiparasitic" that pops into my head most readily. It is entirely possible it exists in other species of wormood and seems to be a little more ... effective as an antiparasitic than thujone does.

Really - it depends on which parasites in particular you have. Some treatments are more effective than others, and anything that is real broad action (thujone, metronidazole) will necessarily disrupt your body's equilibrium.

TL;DR: You'll be fine.

 

[Foreigner]

^ Thanks a lot sekio that info is awesome! I consulted the same sites you did but your breakdown is more reassuring, and you're more objective than I would've been.

Kudos

 

[Fossil_Diver]

If you have intestinal parasites forget the wormwood and read on. I got worms once when I was a kid. My doctor gave me a bottle of some cherry flavored crap that didn't do a damn thing to kill them. My dad grew up on a farm during the Depression and knew quite a few folk remedies. Instead of wasting more money on cherry flavored crap he decided to give me an old fashioned cure for worms, a teaspoon of sugar wetted with some turpentine. I could taste turpentine for a while but those fucking worms were dead. I didn't redose after 14 days either and they never came back. Works on horses too!

 

[sekio]

Pretty much any terpene will kill intestinal parasites if you take enough. You could probably also try cloves, orange peels, nutmegs, black pepper, etc.

 

[Foreigner]

I'm taking tinctured black walnut hulls (unripe green ones), freshly ground cloves and raw wormwood which are all capped myself. With each dose I take 1 clove freshly chopped garlic (left to sit for 10 mins to increase allicin), ginger (to protect the stomach) and grape seed extract mixed with oregano oil. Followed up with probiotics and ferments between meals.

Every few days I'll take 1 capsule cayenne pepper and 1 capsule turmeric/black pepper (the peperine delays the breakdown of curcumin in the turmeric) to circulate the body and reduce inflammation. Whenever I take this combo, all my joints start to feel loose and cracky because the congested supportive tissue all circulates out and releases.

When my liver feels bitchy from all this (a vague feeling of stagnation, overburden, or like there is too much being processed), I'll steep a tea of dandelion, nettle, chamomile, and add 4-5 drops oregon grape (mahonia) tincture.

If you have intestinal parasites forget the wormwood and read on. I got worms once when I was a kid. My doctor gave me a bottle of some cherry flavored crap that didn't do a damn thing to kill them. My dad grew up on a farm during the Depression and knew quite a few folk remedies. Instead of wasting more money on cherry flavored crap he decided to give me an old fashioned cure for worms, a teaspoon of sugar wetted with some turpentine. I could taste turpentine for a while but those fucking worms were dead. I didn't redose after 14 days either and they never came back. Works on horses too!

Wow... interesting story, thanks for sharing that. I bet it killed everything in you, not just the parasites. I wonder if terpentine can harm the liver or kidneys though? I know nothing about it other than its intended use