Healing Papalomoya with Tobacco

After eight months of suffering, misdiagnoses, failed treatments, and excruciating nerve pain, a traditional Amazonian approach using tobacco healed what nothing else could. Papalomoya is the common name in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and other parts of Central and South America for cutaneous leishmaniasis, caused by Leishmania parasites transmitted by sandfly bites. It creates slow-healing skin ulcers, often on exposed areas, that can last months to years, cause scarring, and sometimes involve nerve pain. Standard treatments are antiparasitic drugs such as antimonials, miltefosine or amphotericin B. They can be painful, expensive, hard to get, and carry serious side effects. In Amazonian traditions, tobacco has long been used on wounds, infections and parasites. In early 2023, the pain felt like a deep bruise or blow to the shin, with no visible injury. I also had radiating pain from my heel through my buttocks, likely sciatic nerve involvement, which I first blamed on standing work. Over four months, a small sore emerged from under the skin, grew larger, and became intensely painful. I saw a skilled dermatologist in San José, Costa Rica, who initially treated me for vasculitis. At my follow-up a month later, a second lesion appeared, raising fears it was spreading. She then suspected leishmaniasis. Hospital PCR tests on the dry wounds came back negative twice. Sampling issues with dry lesions are common. Despite this, the symptoms matched leishmaniasis perfectly from my research. In June I tried ivermectin, with no change. By September 2023, eight months in, the pain was excruciating: no pressure on my heel, couldn’t sit comfortably, and nerve pain from heel to buttocks made sleep impossible. The dermatologist mentioned government-hospital injections directly into the wounds, twice weekly for a month. Horrific and unavailable privately. I refused. Desperate, I began talking with various people about the healing power of tobacco. At a plant-medicine ceremony a participant suggested it, and others told me the same: put rapé (traditional snuff) into the wounds, or wrap them daily with tobacco leaves. I discerned for myself to do this. I used Yawanawa Tsunu rapé, approximately 80% pure ground tobacco and 20% tree ash. Without leaves available, I made a paste, packed it into the wounds, and bandaged them. The first application burned fiercely, forcing me to remove it after 20 minutes. I washed it off but persisted daily. By day 2 I tolerated an hour; by the final days, all day. The burn was brutal, but I reminded myself: this or hospital injections. I felt the tobacco actively fighting the parasite. After nine days of treatment, September 22 to 30, 2023, the nerve pain vanished completely. No more heel-to-buttocks agony. I slept peacefully for the first time in eight months. Lesions healed fully by January 2024, with no recurrence.

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