It’s the same, 500mg a cap. Also taking gabapentin. How (and why) should I cycle it? I’m suspicious that stuff is messing with my memory. Ever heard that? I’m sure ambien isn’t helping on that front either…
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BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic
3 Tramadol a day or 12 Kratom. Which is a higher habit?
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coffeeshroom2.0
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As far as cycling the gabapentin, it's for tolerances reason only or from my side
DeathIndustrial88
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Tolerance will play a huge role.
When I had no tolerance, tramadol could get me nodding just as good as heroin. Usually after the 1.5hr spot. It's best to stack your tram doses for maximum opioid effect. As in, take 50mg, wait 20-30mins, take another 50mg & keep doing that until you reach your desire dose.
It is possible you could have had a seizure when you popped that 300mg all at once. Popping it all at once will increase that risk. I never had any seizures from it, but if I upped my dose past 400mg, I would get really twitchy & spastic & would feel like I was close to having a seizure.
But when I had a tolerance to things like heroin, tramadol barely even kept the withdrawal at bay.
Gabapentin by itself is helpful for opioid withdrawal & can actually potentiate some opioids. But it can also decrease blood levels of certain opioids (like hydrocodone). It's possible the gabapentin effects + potentiation helped you take that nap.
Yeah makes sense, I’ve been taking 1200mg gabapentin along with 2 capsules of Kratom, twice a day. It’s totally holding me, and even sometimes take a nap mid day. A tormented nap of pure tension, but a nap nonetheless.
PS - I have to say Ambien is shockingly effective at killing the worst elements of withdrawal symptoms. Namely, it kills anxiety, provides a mild to moderate sense of well being, etc…when you’re coming off fentanyl or any serious opiate really, going through WD all day, Ambien becomes a small (but much beloved) oasis in a barren desert.
I wonder…do any of the other sedative/hypnotics in the Ambien family have similar effects? Sonata, Lunesta, etc…Sonata didn’t feel nearly as euphoric as Ambien. Any others? Recommendations?
I wonder…do any of the other sedative/hypnotics in the Ambien family have similar effects? Sonata, Lunesta, etc…Sonata didn’t feel nearly as euphoric as Ambien. Any others? Recommendations?
DeathIndustrial88
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The reason ambien provides anxiety relief is because it works similar to a benzodiazepine. All the "Z drugs" as they're called are similar to benzos in a way. This is why ambien & lunesta are "controlled".
So I'd say any of the benzo drugs can help with anxiety. As far as euphoria though, you're only likely to feel that from benzos if you're already anxious.
I've tried Lunesta. Other than making me groggy & giving me a metallic taste in my mouth, it was never worth taking again. Ambien is much more enjoyable than lunesta.
Direwolf131
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I know not your age, height, and weight, but I would consider 150-200 mg a day of tramadol pretty easy to cut! Thats just three tabs a day, though I do not recall you explaining dosing. The absolute worst case would be 7-days of discomfort, more likely you will be just fine during daylight, with the primetime occurring overnight via some RLS!Ok, each capsule has 3/4 gram of kratom in it. Only other thing it says is Mitragyna Speciosa: 500mg per cap.
The Tramadol is 150-200mg per day. Appreciate that, shoulda listed the kratom stats up front.
Kratom is a pretty crappy substance beyond very short term use, no more than a week, or two at the long end! 50mg of tramadol is far more potent than the kratom, with a substantially longer half life. Kratom causes me to build up water, you cannot take any of your normal medications with the shit as it interacts with virtually everything negatively!
Kratom is of value only as a short term filler for missing tramadol doses, I take 300mg a day of tramadol for chronic pain and if I am ahead in my dosing I will substitute just four caps of kratom for a missing 50mg dose of tramadol. It works very well in that role with but one major caveat, the kratom wears off entirely within 1-2 hours, were the tramadol is working for 4-6 hours!
idontremember
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I have been addicted to both tramadol and kratom. Tramadol I was able to stop (after having a seizure) without needing medical intervention/no detox, etc. Kratom on the other hand, I actually ended up in detox. It was hell. Everybody is different and people often laugh when I tell them that I had a kratom problem. I have had multiple people tell me that it's not even possible to be addicted to Kratom. well, I was, and it was awful. i had to constantly redose due to bad withdrawals. Kratom stopped working for me completely/no euphoria/I couldn't even get to normal anymore, I just needed to get out of bed or to get into bed to sleep. It was so awful. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that no one can really answer this question for you. Most people would assume the prescription drug would be worse, but for some, it's the natural stuff (granted Kratom never gave me a seizure that I know about BUT it was much, much easier for me to get off tramadol than it was to get off kratom). You know yourself best. I wonder if you are leaning towards one and are hoping that you are wrong because you prefer it? Near the end of my kratom habit I was having suicidal ideation. I still think Kratom has its benefits. It did help me get off of dilaudid/percocet etc. I just then started abusing kratom. I wish I had been taking kratom under supervision or something. Again, it definitely has its place in addiction treatment, I don't ever want it to be illegal. I just wish more people would acknowledge some of the bad stuff when it comes to kratom. i genuinely had no idea when I first started taking it. People told me it wasn't addictive and I believed them (I also wanted ot believe them, but still). Sorry, I will get off my sopabox now haha.
How much kratom were you taking and for how long? I have been taking an average of 3 black OPMS capsules per day for a couple of months. I am worried that withdrawal could be worse than I thought. Have you ever done the black OPMS capsules?
idontremember
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So I had 3 different periods of kratom addiction, the last one is what sent me to detox. The first two periods of addiction lasted about 6 months each? I was not taking extracts at that time. It was a long time ago so I don't remember the first two very well. I was buying stuff online. i got busted and stopped taking it cold turkey. Withdrawals SUCKED but I was OK. It was just like a bad flu with some PAWS but ended after about 2 weeks each time?
My last (and worst) bout with kratom, I was on it daily for over a year. It got to the point where I was only taking extracts, black opms, gold opms, MIT, etc. because non-extracts wouldn't even touch the withdrawals. It was hell. I was waiting outside of the smoke shop in the morning for it to open like I used to stand outside of liquor stores (I have had problems with many substances). When they were out of extracts I'd go to the next one. When I was broke, I'd beg the shopkeeper and tell them I'd pay them back when I did have money (they actually would give it to me and I did pay them back later. At the time I thought it was because they were really nice people lol. I'm really naive. I mean its possible they were just being nice but..... yeah). The money I was spending was unreal (only to be later beaten by my tinapetine addiction which is another story and OMG DO NOT EVER TAKE TINAPETINE. I sometimes do not mention tinapetine in my stories about addiction because I'm terrified I will accidentally give someone the idea to go try it. I am mentioning it here to show how bad my kratom experience was. If you ever think kratom is expensive or kratom withdrawals are hell, Tinapetine will make you forclose on your house and withdrawals can kill you).
Do the extracts still work for you? A big warning sign for me that I was in a lot of trouble, was when one day the extracts literally stopped working. They did nothing. I could take a whole 5 pack gold opms and feel zilch besides borderline normal. I thought because I wasn't feeling anything anymore, it would be easier for me to stop because I wasn't feeling good anymore. I think if you are still feeling pretty good off of them you are actually still relatively 'safe' in that while withdrawals won't be fun, I don't think you'll necessarily be in the bind that I was in (I don't know though, I'm not a doctor and everyone is different). I do think that you should try tapering asap, before you get to the point where they aren't doing anything for you but you still need them.
This is the order of what happened to me in about a year and a half? I can't remember if my third bout lasted a whole two years or a year and a half):
- I could take any strain and feel pretty nice on about 20 pills a day, spread out.
- Needed 60 pills a day
- needed 60+ pills a day and only red strains worked for me
- needed a bottle a day or a couple of extracts a day
- needed 3+ extracts a day
- needed 5+ extracts a day
- OPMS stopped working for me/feeling good. Only thing I could ever get a slight buzz off of after that happened, was MIT 45 (odd I know because Black OPMS is supposed to be waaaaay stronger. I don't know what it was. I might be the only person this has ever happened to).
- MIT45 stopped working/giving me any buzz. I still needed 5+ extracts worth or bottles of regular strains a day to be able to feel almost normal.
- I wanted to die. I started getting sloppy. I was caught (I was supposed to be sober all three periods of time I was on kratom) and sent to detox where I was put on suboxone. I am still on suboxone a couple of years later.
The level of desperation, despair, self-loathing, anguish, I was feeling every day before detox still make me feel choked up when I think about it. The next time I'd feel that bad (and worse) was when I got addicted to tinapetine, but that's another story. i felt less hopeless when I was addicted to painkillers. It was a different kind of shame, more like when I was an active alcoholic. Being addicted to Kratom and alcoholism felt similar to me because both felt very, very... all my fault. Like millions of people can do both fine, they're not illegal, what is wrong with me? Why am I so messed up that I can't do what everyone else can? That definitely added to why the end was so horrible for me. Rationally I know I shouldn't have felt like that, but I did.
I know most people (probably everyone besides me) will say that withdrawals form prescription opiods is way worse but that was not my experience. Part of this, I think, is because people understand opiate addiction more. Getting treatment for Kratom and later tinapetine was hard because I was the first kratom/tinapetine addict those particular medical personnel had ever seen (that they knew about). I was not correctly medicated/detoxed.
I don't mean to scare you. i just don't want you getting complacent. I want you to know more than I did. I do not think kratom is evil. I think it should actually be the first line of defense in medical assisted detox, before Suboxone and before Methadone. Looking back on it, the first real sign for me that I was in trouble was when I could only take extracts. I think you might be there though I don't know. I do think if you start tapering now, you could still be in good shape. If you have access to gabapentin and can take it, that helps a lot with tapering (though don't get addicted to gabapentin, you can die from withdrawals. At least with kratom, that I know about at least, withdrawals can't kill you).
So besides the physical withdrawal symptoms which are like traditional opiate withdrawals, I had reallllllly bad mental issues withdrawing from Kratom. I guess it's PAWS? Though it happened simultaneously with the physical withdrawals. I think that's another sign you should look out for. The extracts aren't working as well (or not working at all) and you are feeling down all of the time (that can be hard to distinguish if you have problems with depression anyway, which I also do, but now I know looking back on it that it was also from going into daily withdrawals/kratom not working anymore, etc). You can also try an experiment of seeing what happens when you don't take any kratom for the day. When do you start feeling sick (if you do at all)? How much do you need to take to not feel sick anymore?
I could go ona nd on but i won't because I've already written way too much and I don't blame you if you don't read it. If you want to talk more about it, message me. I'm happy to answer any questions I can or to give support. I know it's hard. I have chronic pain and in the beginning the kratom really did help. It didn't help forever though. I wish I could be normal and take opiates for pain and kratom etc and not get addicted or react the way I do. It sucks. So, I understand and am here.
Thank you for this reply and and all of this information!
I started out with the black OPMS capsules because I did not want to have to take a handful. I used them to help stop taking another opioid. That, so far, has worked because I have only been taking the kratom (and Soma). I am always worried about withdrawal. For the first part of each day I can feel very mild withdrawal. It’s not very bad at all. I use this as a justification to take another by early afternoon. Then I will usually have two more before the day is over. I also take a few Soma usually by evening. This has been routine for at least a couple of months. They still work for me doing it this way.
Your experience is very helpful as I know I need to be careful. The last thing I want is to get trapped in another addiction. I guess maybe I already have?
There are so many varying reports on kratom. Some podcasts I have listened describe the withdrawals as no worse than caffeine said people describe withdrawals as never higher than a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. I don’t know what to believe but your experience cannot be argued against.
Thank you again. I appreciate learning from people who have experience with this stuff.
I started out with the black OPMS capsules because I did not want to have to take a handful. I used them to help stop taking another opioid. That, so far, has worked because I have only been taking the kratom (and Soma). I am always worried about withdrawal. For the first part of each day I can feel very mild withdrawal. It’s not very bad at all. I use this as a justification to take another by early afternoon. Then I will usually have two more before the day is over. I also take a few Soma usually by evening. This has been routine for at least a couple of months. They still work for me doing it this way.
Your experience is very helpful as I know I need to be careful. The last thing I want is to get trapped in another addiction. I guess maybe I already have?
There are so many varying reports on kratom. Some podcasts I have listened describe the withdrawals as no worse than caffeine said people describe withdrawals as never higher than a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. I don’t know what to believe but your experience cannot be argued against.
Thank you again. I appreciate learning from people who have experience with this stuff.
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