Calea Ingestion Route

[NeuroPharmer]

Greetings,

Just started experimenting with Calea Z. (can't even guess how to spell that - too lazy to google), and I'm wondering what the most efficient way to take it is.

I've been chewing 2 dried leaves at a time (i.e. per night), until the bitterness (and there's a lot of it) is gone. I've been doing this to test for bad reactions/allergies, since I got a headache the day after the first trial, and want to make sure this was just a coincidence.

From here I'm tossing up between 'chewing' 4-5 dried leaves and maybe smoking some leaves/flowers;

or,

brewing a tea from the same amount, or maybe more, and again, maybe smoking some leaves/flowers.

Which is best/most efficient? Am I getting any nasties into my system by chewing the leaves that would otherwise be broken down/left behind by hot water? (Yech, bad syntax - but you know what I mean).

Should I generally treat the flowers like the leaves? Or are they to be favoured/avoided under certain circumstances?

OK, thanks in advance,

NP

[mycomorphosis]

I had some good results from smoking a mixture of dried leaves and flowers. The only problem with smoking it is that you need to smoke quite a bit to get the desired effect (for me it was 3 or four pipes or a joint minimum), and it's quite a harsh smoke too. A little colt's foot would probably dampen it down, but I didn't try that because I didn't want to add to the overall amount of material I had to smoke. It is possible to make a tea, but apparently it tastes absolutely vile.

As for the headache, that may not have been a coincidence after all. It seems that lots of people have only positive effects from calea, but I have heard of a few people now who feel they have suffered calea "hangovers" and other negative after effects (myself included). Hopefully this won't be a problem for you. Good luck.

[Happy Cadaver]

Good luck with your bioassays and let us know what u reckon is the best method, if there is no info available then it is ripe for you creating that info ;)

[prier]

UTSE, there are heaps of threads on this subject, and it'd be good to keep all the info together.

Edited August 23, 2006 by prier

[Auxin]

UTSE, there are heaps of threads on this subject, and it'd be good to keep all the info together.

I dont remember any thread on sublingual administration of Calea zacatechichi, much less one comparing sublingual to tea and smoking. I do remember I specifically looked for info on sublingual use once and found absolutely nothing (I assumed people just dont like the flavor for some reason )

When my plants are big nuf I'll have to try.... uh, probably

[NeuroPharmer]

OK, I'll answer all four replies in front of me at once, so apologies for not naming people individually.

I'd read about 'allergic' reactions to calea, but these included swelling & itching of the extremities &c.; don't remember anything about headaches. But then again I virtually never get headaches, so the calea is suspect in my mind at least. That said, after 4 further bioassays I have no more headaches to report (that first one came and went over a couple of days though).

I had searched, both here on the 'net, and found nothing on sublingual absorption... I find Invision board search engines to be really dodgy, and often have to resort to manual trawling of very general keyword search results to get anything relevant... is this just me? Am I that much of a spaz? I (at least IMHO) am usually pretty good at creating effective, efficient search strings in journal DBs and general SEs on the 'net.

I can 'confirm' at least that sublingual absorption of the active compounds does take place. I base this on the fact that I've been careful not to swallow whilst 'chewing' (chewing like you'd 'chew' blotter acid to tease the fibres apart, also rolling the leaves into a ball once softened and 'washing' with salvia - I can't really explain it better than that). Doing this, I've had definite, distinctive, and in my expeirience, unique results - results that I'm confident in saying are beyond placebo/psychosoemia (sp.?). Viz, waking many times during the night, 6 by my bedside tally (I usually sleep right through). Plus wierd dreams and at least 2 false awakenings (there may have been more, I'm not sure whether these others were untallied true awakenings or convincing false ones).

My 5th bioassay resulted in less frequent waking (3 times, but no tally kept) and only fragments of dreams recalled each time (I had taken quite a lot of kava though).

I've only tried smoking one pipe of leaves/flowers once, on my first trial... I haven't since, since I have a sore throat and haven't been smoking anything.

Since I read that the effects are kind of cumulative I'm planning on trying sublingual admin. for a week, then a week's break, then tea for a week, then repeat over another 3 weeks. Any better ideas? I don't like spreading it over so much time, but I can't think of another way to factor out possible cumulative effects.

OK, much longer than I had planned.

Thanks for the replies and keep them coming. I appreciate the urge to yell UTFSE! at me , but I honestly couldn't (and can't) find this topic anywhere on these forums. By all means post a link if you can.

Thanks!

P.S. Auxin: re: taste... not *that* bad. Quite nice at first (while the leaves are rehydrating) then a sudden hit of bitter that stays for ages... 15min at least. No gagging or anything, although trying not to swallow your saliva, it does 'foam' a lot, which can be hard to deal with when combined with the bitter. I'd say bitterness on par with codeine phosphate in aqueous... not nearly as bad as cacti.

Edited August 24, 2006 by NeuroPharmer