Member’s Minute Transcript

Ms. Hamburger:          Hello, and welcome to a Conners Clinic Member’s Minute. This is Michelle Hamburger, and I am here with Dr. Conners. Today, we are going to talk about black salve and black salve/bloodroot and the ways that we use this in our clinic and how it can be beneficial for many of our patients when utilized in different ways.

 

Member's Minute 12 - Black Salve/Bloodroot | Dr. Kevin Conners

Dr. Conners:               So bloodroot is an herb. And so many herbs are beneficial for our health in so many different ways, and bloodroot has been one of those “cancer killers” that people have spoken about. It can be very beneficial. You have to be very careful with it because it is a — it’s a fairly caustic herb and it can cause a lot of irritation, so you do have to be careful with how you use it.

 

We use typically three forms in our office. The one that you see here is a bloodroot salve that’s made with some creams and some other herbs mixed in with it. This is what you see that is used for topical cancers, topical skin lesions. You do have to be very careful with it and make sure you use it under a doctor’s control because it can draw out cancer, but it can be extremely painful. Usually, you need pain meds to go along with it.

 

These black salve capsules, these don’t tend to cause any symptoms taken correctly. Seem to be easy to ingest. Don’t get broken down into the intestines so don’t really cause any problems. These are more if you want to get the bloodroot into your body systemically. Can be good for colon cancer, liver cancer, other different cancers. Again, make sure you have doctor supervision when utilizing it, but this is ground.

 

The root, itself, that’s ground. We use this quite often as we mix it with different products that we’ve created like mushroom products. We use bloodroot/mushroom mix. It can taste pretty bad. It’s a pretty strong tasting herb, so that could be an issue, and that’s where using it — if you’re trying to get it systemically, using it with a capsule can sometimes be a little bit better. But just a straight ground herb can be very beneficial for a lot of different things and a lot of different uses as well.

 

Ms. Hamburger:          When would using either black salve or the black salve/bloodroot be a — be contraindicated or be a bad idea?

 

Dr. Conners:               Well, definitely with the black salve, if you have an open wound, an open tumor, let’s say a breast cancer that’s coming out, you’d have to be — use great amount of caution because it will draw the cancer further out. And that can cause an enormous amount of pain. It is said that you don’t want to use more than the size of — a dime size on any skin lesion or on any topical lesion, so you just have to use a lot of caution. You know, you can buy this stuff on the market, but you have to be really, really careful using it because it is very, very powerful.

 

As far as contraindication to the capsules, I don’t really see any except if you have an ulcer. That would be a contraindication. If you have a stomach ulcer or a duodenal ulcer, that could cause a lot of irritation and maybe worsen the ulcer. You have to be careful with that. That’s why you want to be under doctor supervision with that. Same thing with the powder. If you’re ingesting that orally, you got to be careful with the amount that you use. For instance, how much we use typically of this powder is in a pint of mushrooms. We may be able to use a tablespoon of the powder, so it’s a very low dose. You certainly would not take this by itself. You’d probably gag on it, first of all. It tastes horrible. And, secondly, it could be very, very irritating to the stomach, so you have to be careful with it.

 

Ms. Hamburger:          Would anybody that has an open sore or wound due to the cancer have any benefit in doing the black salve, or because of the nature of it, it would be so painful that they probably wouldn’t get the benefit they’d like from it?

 

Dr. Conners:               With the salve? Yeah, it would be very painful. You’d really have to have a lot of supervision with it. You’d have to be careful with it because, again, it does kill cancer directly, and that’s the beauty of black salve or a black — the bloodroot is that it kills cancer directly, but it does so by drawing it out. And that’s going to cause a great amount of inflammation. This is what it’s doing. It’s creating this inflammatory site there that’s drawing in your T cells to help kill those cancer cells, which is great, but the side effect is pain because you got all this inflammation at the site of your skin. And it’s going to be extremely painful, and you’re going to need some medical support.

 

Ms. Hamburger:          When I was last doing research on black salve, I’d also been reading that they’d recommend — there’s certain parts of the body that you shouldn’t be doing it. Like, you wouldn’t put black salve on your nose for the fact that you could actually eat away at part of the nose, itself, or on your lip. You could end up — the black salve could eat away part of your lip, and your body wouldn’t be able to regenerate —

 

Dr. Conners:               — Well, sure.

 

Ms. Hamburger:          — that part.

 

Dr. Conners:               But you got to weigh that out, too. I mean, what’s the other solution if you got cancer on your nose and they’re going to surgically remove your skin and your cartilage there? You’re not going to have anything left either, so when you do black salve as a topical salve for — to kill cancer, you’re going to leave a wound. So it’s not going to heal back perfectly like you don’t know that anything was there. You are going to leave a wound. What you have to weigh out is, do you want a wound from the cancer being pulled out — drawn out from a natural herb, or do you want to surgically remove it, which could possibly spread the cancer all over. And it’s still going to leave a ginormous wound. So, you know, don’t think that just because it’s a natural approach it’s going to just be miraculous, and everything’s going to go away. You’re not going to have any side effects from it. A natural approach can have side effects from it, pain, wound formation. If it’s in the cartilage of your nose, you can lose the cartilage in your nose. That’s not going to grow back. You’re going to be left with a scar either way, so you do need to be informed before you just go buy something on the internet and then utilize it. For instance, we don’t sell black salve on our website just because of that caustic nature, but we don’t let somebody use it that’s ill informed.

 

Ms. Hamburger:          So the most important thing is, if you’re going to be using it that you do talk with your healthcare practitioner or —

 

Dr. Conners:               — Yeah.

 

Ms. Hamburger:          — with one of us at Conners Clinic to be able to see if this would be the right thing for you.

 

Dr. Conners:               Right, absolutely. All right. Well, thank you very much.

 

Ms. Hamburger:          Thank you.