My 70-yr old father used to tell me stories about how his parents gave him and his 7 siblings turpentine/kerosene to suck down when they had colds or flus when he was growing up. Didn't kill any of them. So much for it being 'deadly'.

Anyhow, after stumbling over and reading Dr Daniel's report over the weekend I'd figured I'd give Turpentine a try too.

So Monday I bought Klean Strip 100% Pure gum spirits Turpentine [the word 'of' is missing from the name]. Several places it says "100% Pure" and "Nature's Solvent".

Well, around 9 pm Monday night I downed 1 tsp with 1 1/2 of the advised Sugar cubes (was too much to handle choking down all three cubes).

Immediately started burping like crazy. The burping lasted into the next morning, even woke me from sleep several times during the night. Was clear of burping by the afternoon though.

Monday night however my tongue filled with whiteish 'gunk' that looked sort of like a layer of wheat paste, cookie dough'ish. I used my tongue scraper to get rid of it followed by Listerine original mouthwash. Didn't recur. Only the burping continued.

Oh. Here's something weird...

Earlier in day on Monday I had juiced a raw beet along with other fruits and veggies {same on previous Sunday}. To my surprise the day after taking Turpentine I was purging 'red' from both ends on Tuesday. Looked like blood coming out. Been eating beets for years. Juiced beets for maybe three years. Never had this happen.

Oddly, seems the turpentine forced much of the unprocessed beet juice and beet pulp I had eaten to pass through me undigested {probably 'parasites' trying to quickly escape is my guess(?)].

At first was freaky to see all that red coming out of each end. I had completely forgotten about previous day of juicing beets and began to imagine maybe the turpentine had eaten my insides up during the night...and now my destroyed flesh was going into the toilet (lol). I got dizzy big time just seeing the 'blood'. Was adrenaline causing the shakes 'cause the red was pretty pronounced and prior to that I had zero symptoms.

After regaining myself I called poison control to find out what danger I was in. They said since turpentine is 'natural' it does not cause internal bleeding. Only immediate harm is possibly respiratory problems. Said they've never seen any kind of bleeding or tissue damage. And they said the only treatment they recommend is 6 hours of observation in emergency room immediately after ingestion but only if respiratory problems or uncontrolled vomiting occurs. They do not advise any chemicals to 'flush' or neutralize turpentine, since it is a natural product {not expected to hear that from poison control}.

Well, aside from the rush of red beet 'blood' and the subsequent adrenaline rush (big baby) I've had no side effects. Tonight will make four days so far that I've tested this and I'm still around. No (noticeable) tissue damage and no respiratory problems.

Still, though, if anyone else is bold enough to try this I advise you get a brand of turpentine guaranteed to be pure, with no risk of petroleum or other chemicals 'secretly' added.

I have no clue if Klean Strip brand is actually safe to test beyond this one risk I've taken thus far. If it were safe I'd use it over and over again until I'm guaranteed to be clear of latent parasites or whatever it is that caused the tongue pancake {not occurred since, but that may mean nothing if latent bits are in hiding}.

Till then I'm off to scour www for a brand more safe [relatively speaking] to consume.

* Do any of you know if there's any advantage to buying a 'distilled' turpentine vs a brand not specifically listed as distilled?

Dr Daniel's report doesn't say one way or the other. My guess is that Klean Strip is probably safe, but since I cannot verify that this particular turpentine is free of unlisted additives or petroleum I kinda don't want to risk sucking more of this down till I know more.

thanks