Kratom The Kratom Megathread

[Ziiirp]

Piece of cake I wouldn't say, but given all the horror stories I got 2 assumptions :

1. People, that get severe WD symptoms from Kratom have taken pharmaceutical Opiates for a certain amount of time before switching to Kratom, which worsens the symptoms significantly

2. Some WD reports are pure lies, i.e. pharma-sponsored (you won't find them here, rather on the sheeple-mainstream-boards)

To resume : I don't glorify Kratom abuse, but as long as you stay in reasonable dose boundaries, the withdrawal is not everyday-life threatening at all.

 

[Slow_Mobius]

Piece of cake I wouldn't say, but given all the horror stories I got 2 assumptions :

1. People, that get severe WD symptoms from Kratom have taken pharmaceutical Opiates for a certain amount of time before switching to Kratom, which worsens the symptoms significantly

2. Some WD reports are pure lies, i.e. pharma-sponsored (you won't find them here, rather on the sheeple-mainstream-boards)

To resume : I don't glorify Kratom abuse, but as long as you stay in reasonable dose boundaries, the withdrawal is not everyday-life threatening at all.

Agree. Except i would throw extracts in there too. I've noticed that some people who complain about really bad kratom WD that's more similar to heroin WD symptoms are using extracts. I'm not entirely convinced that many of the "extracts" on the market are actual kratom extracts, though.

It can also get pretty bad if you have a crazy habit, but who wouldn't expect that. All-in-all, I'll take WD from a moderate kratom habit over WD from caffeine. I actually had horrible leg cramps from CT caffeine WD that were way worse than the mild RLS and cramping I got from kratom WD.

 

[Mycophile]

Always be dubious when people offer up "advice" like that without one shred of evidence as to why it would work like that. I mesn if they can show some physiological evidence of any such a sweet spot would exist and why taking more actually reduces it's effectiveness then fair enough, but usually they don't. Ivmesn there would need to exist some sort of negative feedback loop between dose and effect.

What Slow Mobus is talking about (kindling effect) and tollerence going up fast even after a break is different as that's a documented scientific fact with opiods but what this Reddit guy is saying sounds just like unsubstantiated nonsense unless he can prove to you that it isn't

Well I do think that in my experience too much Kratom can have negative effects because you essentially overdosed and I've killed highs before by taking too much but not in the course of less than 45 mins so that's the difference and maybe that just isn't possible.

I know that from having taken too much many times and I don't think a lot of proof is required to guess that if you take way too much it might not be enjoyable and the side effects might overpower the good effects, and I think it's true that everyone has their own unique sweet spot based on many factors.

I'm not saying who's right or wrong.

I'll take advice from many places and see what I can learn from everyone.

I guess all I can do is keep experimenting with different doses.

I have a hard time believing that I fooled myself into feeling high, but I do also question whether or not it's physically possible to feel Kratom's effects after only 20 mins so it could perhaps be the case.

It's just frustrating.

Maybe next time I'll just jump to closer to my old doses and figure that my tolerance is permanently messed up.

Or I could try to take it on an empty stomach, but I don't like doing that as it gives me side effects and I don't like starving myself.

 

[Fresco]

Piece of cake I wouldn't say, but given all the horror stories I got 2 assumptions :

1. People, that get severe WD symptoms from Kratom have taken pharmaceutical Opiates for a certain amount of time before switching to Kratom, which worsens the symptoms significantly

2. Some WD reports are pure lies, i.e. pharma-sponsored (you won't find them here, rather on the sheeple-mainstream-boards)

To resume : I don't glorify Kratom abuse, but as long as you stay in reasonable dose boundaries, the withdrawal is not everyday-life threatening at all

Great points all around.

I agree with #1 for the most part.

#2 I slightly disagree with, because I know there's some guys who messed with extracts, and those can give you almost the same WD symptoms as regular opiates can. Thats why you shouldnt mess with extracts

 

[Mycophile]

Today I jumped up to 12 grams and at least I'm feeling more than I had before.

I'd started with 9 on an empty stomach and started to feel decent but then it just turned into irritability, so I ate and took another 3.

Now I feel pleasantly relaxed but not the kind of great stimulant opioid effect I'd come to expect when I used to use it at ridiculous doses of 16 grams which I never should have allowed to get that high.

I guess perhaps the kindling effect could be going on (Thanks Slow-Mobius)...as it at least the negative side effects or irritability and general crappiness that I'd had on the 9 grams disappeared after another 3.

I guess I probably did permanently screw up my tolerance so I'll just make my next dose 16 grams like it used to be and see what happens.

If it keeps not working then maybe somehow Kratom just doesn't work for me anymore, but I've never heard of that happening for anyone unless they were users of hard opiates which I'm not.

It's not like if it doesn't that a drug no longer working for someone is some great tragedy, but by the relaxed buzz I've got going on now I guess it still does something, if not necessarily what it used to.

I should never have let my tolerance get so high.

Has anyone here ever heard of a case of someone who DOESN'T use hard opiates have Kratom just completely stop working for them?

 

[Mycophile]

Always be dubious when people offer up "advice" like that without one shred of evidence as to why it would work like that. I mesn if they can show some physiological evidence of any such a sweet spot would exist and why taking more actually reduces it's effectiveness then fair enough, but usually they don't. Ivmesn there would need to exist some sort of negative feedback loop between dose and effect.

What Slow Mobus is talking about (kindling effect) and tollerence going up fast even after a break is different as that's a documented scientific fact with opiods but what this Reddit guy is saying sounds just like unsubstantiated nonsense unless he can prove to you that it isn't

Since you asked, this poster did in fact produce a lot of science to what he was saying.


Again, I don't know who is right or wrong, perhaps both of them have truth in what they are saying, which is why I like comparing posts between posters, whether they are on the same site or different sites.

Here was his last post which I found interesting:

I'm going to get a little sciencey, but I'll explain it well, promise:
The amount of time to peak concentration is not the amount of time to any concentration. Peak means there's as much of it in your blood as there possibly can be. This is true with anything you put into your body, and is dependant on many factors like dosage, food in the stomach, how well your small intestine absorbs it, metabolism, and the coconcurrance of other substances in your body. If you look up "half-life" on Google it will list many sets of initials that probably won't mean much to you, but they stand for things like "time to peak concentration" and the metabolic half life (the time it takes to metabolize half of the dose, then it continues to eliminate half of what remains in the same amount of time as the first half. I.e. you take 30mgs of a medication with a half life of about 4 hours. This means 15mg will remain at 4 hours, 7.5mgs at 8 hours, 3.75mgs at 12hrs, etc. ) The half life and time to peak plasma concentration will be written in hours or minutes, followed by a +/- and another number. This +/- is the time that is added to or subtracted from the half life/time to peak depending on the person and other factors previously mentioned. Mitragynine's (the main alkoloid of kratom) time to peak plasma concentration is .83 +/-.35 hrs, or 51 minutes, + or - 21 minutes. So peak can be reached as soon as 30 minutes or as late as 72 minutes and anywhere in between. If peak can be reached in 30 minutes, then obviously a decent amount of the stuff is in your blood in 20 minutes.
Placebo effect certainly happens to people, but there's science proving thats not the case here. I'll link the study below to look at if you're interested.
Tolerance is a weird thing. It usually builds slowly and reduces quickly with kratom, but with anything you put in your body it eventually hits a point where some tolerance becomes permanent. If someone takes say, an antidepressant for a few years and increases dose with time, once they stop for a long period of time, tolerance will go down. But depending on the amount and length of time used, they may never be able to take the minimum dose and achieve desired effects again.
10 months is a long time, and "permanent tolerance" is usually pretty low. So I'm not sure that's the problem. Kratom is a plant and alkaloid content varies greatly from strain to strain, and more importantly, crop to crop and area to area. The vendor may have received a low-alkaloid crop or could have changed suppliers/farmers since 10 months ago. Im willing to bet that is what's going on here.
Agmatine slightly helped to slow the build of tolerance when I was taking oxycodone daily, but I had to take about 2500mg daily before it did anything at all. I haven't had much luck with the other things you mentioned, but I have found that taking cimetidine (tagamet) greatly increases the analgesia and mood lifting effects for me. I can actually cut my dose to 75% with 200mg (one pill). However, taking 400+ mg and taking it daily will hinder it by causing a too little stomach acid. With too little stomach acid, your body can't properly digest and metabolize it. If you only take cimetidine twice a week you shouldn't have this problem though. *Tip: Here in PA, cimetidine is available OTC in 60ct for $5 at Walmart, Tagamet brand is $12 for a 30ct at other pharmacies
Any chance you've started taking a daily medicine for heartburn, like Nexium or Prilosec in the last 10 months? That would obviously cause low stomach acid. There's also some reports that certain preservatives in food can hinder absorbtion in the intestines. Not sure which ones or how accurate that is though, I read about it sometime last year.
If you made it this far, then I certainly hope I've provided you with some useful information and offered some ideas that will help you out.
Study of mitragynine in man:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425236/

 

[Slow_Mobius]

@Mycophile it's not about whether or not it's possible for you to feel kratom 20 minutes after dosing. And alcohol is absorbed differently btw. With T&W kratom, you slowly extract alkaloids from the root before it can even be absorbed, and mitragynine analogues take extra time to cross the blood brain barrier because they're a PGP substrate iirc. So even at peak blood concentration, it may take additional time to feel it. And the In the study they're giving people aqueous mitragynine on an empty stomache--not T&W powder. Those number are going to be bigger for T&W powder.

Anyways, the effects you describe have basically 0 correlation with what your blood concentration of kratom alkaloids will be. If you're feeling high 20 minutes after dosing and the high goes away another 20 minutes later, the "high" was at least partly the pavlovian effect. I'm not saying everytime you get high it's a placebo. I'm saying that if you're high is coming and going 20-40 minutes after dosing, it's at least partly a placebo in that very specific circumstance.

I don't think there's much else for to add. To summarize, if your high vanishes 40 minutes after dosing, the most logical explanation, based on what you've said, is that the "high" was partly a pavlovian response. Sounds like your tolerance is high again which is why you're having trouble getting anything out of your kratom. The conditions in the study you cited are very different from consuming powder, unless you're drinking a very well prepared kratom tea on an empty stomache

 

[Backfromthebrink]

Well I do think that in my experience too much Kratom can have negative effects because you essentially overdosed and I've killed highs before by taking too much but not in the course of less than 45 mins so that's the difference and maybe that just isn't possible.

I know that from having taken too much many times and I don't think a lot of proof is required to guess that if you take way too much it might not be enjoyable and the side effects might overpower the good effects, and I think it's true that everyone has their own unique sweet spot based on many factors.

I'm not saying who's right or wrong.

I'll take advice from many places and see what I can learn from everyone.

I guess all I can do is keep experimenting with different doses.

I have a hard time believing that I fooled myself into feeling high, but I do also question whether or not it's physically possible to feel Kratom's effects after only 20 mins so it could perhaps be the case.

It's just frustrating.

Maybe next time I'll just jump to closer to my old doses and figure that my tolerance is permanently messed up.

Or I could try to take it on an empty stomach, but I don't like doing that as it gives me side effects and I don't like starving myself.

I'm not saying he didn't provide evidence (I haven't read it). It was more a general statement that when people come up with some strange theory that they can't provide evidence of, I'm dubious..

Of course if they did provide evidence, then that's fine..just weigh it up in your own mind and decide if it's valid or not...

Like I say, I was more referring to odd theories that don't make sense and for which people can't offer you any proof other than "well it works for me man"...I'm sure you know the type I mean....

 

[Mycophile]

@Mycophile it's not about whether or not it's possible for you to feel kratom 20 minutes after dosing. And alcohol is absorbed differently btw. With T&W kratom, you slowly extract alkaloids from the root before it can even be absorbed, and mitragynine analogues take extra time to cross the blood brain barrier because they're a PGP substrate iirc. So even at peak blood concentration, it may take additional time to feel it. And the In the study they're giving people aqueous mitragynine on an empty stomache--not T&W powder. Those number are going to be bigger for T&W powder.

Anyways, the effects you describe have basically 0 correlation with what your blood concentration of kratom alkaloids will be. If you're feeling high 20 minutes after dosing and the high goes away another 20 minutes later, the "high" was at least partly the pavlovian effect. I'm not saying everytime you get high it's a placebo. I'm saying that if you're high is coming and going 20-40 minutes after dosing, it's at least partly a placebo in that very specific circumstance.

I don't think there's much else for to add. To summarize, if your high vanishes 40 minutes after dosing, the most logical explanation, based on what you've said, is that the "high" was partly a pavlovian response. Sounds like your tolerance is high again which is why you're having trouble getting anything out of your kratom. The conditions in the study you cited are very different from consuming powder, unless you're drinking a very well prepared kratom tea on an empty stomache

Ok thanks then I believe you, unfortunately.

In your experience, do you think it's likely that for someone like me who does NOT use hard opioids (and has only used them a handful of times in my life), who had a good response to Kratom 10 months ago (albeit to 16 gram doses but still) could COMPLETELY lose the ability to get high in the same way off of Kratom again for some unknown reason just because I took such massive doses?

I mean I could MAYBE get it if I stopped getting effects from it due to tolerance BEFORE my 10 month break but I didn't so how could it happen AFTER a 10 month break?

I'm just wondering if I can get my old effects back again, I mean I've had SOME but it's very hard to really get much.

And please note I'm not asking if it could SOMEHOW be possible to lose all ability to get the same high off Kratom by some unknown mechanism (cause I guess anything is possible) but if you have ever actually heard of it happening or if you think it is LIKELY...

Would you have any possible suggestions to make it work better for me again and do you think if I keep taking higher doses (although of course I'd like to keep my tolerance down) that sooner or later I should be able to get it work for me?

Cause so far all I can think of is to just give in and go back to my old mega doses of 16 grams...which would kind of suck but oh well...

I mean I DID feel 12 grams today which is the most I've dosed since I started again, and I felt it...but it was STILL extremely mild.

10 months ago I was getting REALLY high off of 16 gram doses.

Thank you for the responses.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Myco....Ive noticed that I can't get high on kratom the same way as I did at first. Even after stopping for a couple months. And to further complicated it. I had been through years of IV oxy/heroin use before I ever tried kratom (had tapered down to low maintenance doses and stopped injecting by the time i discovered kratom though).

Kratom although binding to the mu receptor, does so differently than opiates. results in different dopamine levels in different parts of the brain than regular opiates and has all that additional off target pharmacology too. Thus maybe we can get used to it and not get the same high.


Think of the first time you smoked weed, I was hallucinating like an acid trip. And this happened the first several times i was high on weed. Now it never happens again even after stopping weed for a year.

 

[Ziiirp]

94h after last dose : I'd say I'm close to baseline (never felt far away but I expect the wd to linger). Took 2mg Lope today (1 pill). Most significant wd symptom atm is the adrenergic rebound; as soon as I take any stimulant (weak ones like caffeine or adaptogens) I get a cranked out quickly. Colors are more vivid in general, when during the first 2 days they were more dull. Interesting.

I don't feel any craving for Kratom, as my rational conclusion is, that it is just not beneficial for me anymore. I realized, the only reason I did not stop earlier was the low price, the low negative impact on dystopian western every-day life and the (mostly exaggerated) horror stories about wd symptoms. Maybe in the next emotional/physical crisis it can proof itself helpful again. Or maybe I actually grew up. 8(

 

[MDPV_Psychosis]

Thats good man, congrats. Sounds like you're coming past it nicely. About how much were you using per day beforehand?

 

[Mycophile]

Myco....Ive noticed that I can't get high on kratom the same way as I did at first. Even after stopping for a couple months. And to further complicated it. I had been through years of IV oxy/heroin use before I ever tried kratom (had tapered down to low maintenance doses and stopped injecting by the time i discovered kratom though).

Kratom although binding to the mu receptor, does so differently than opiates. results in different dopamine levels in different parts of the brain than regular opiates and has all that additional off target pharmacology too. Thus maybe we can get used to it and not get the same high.


Think of the first time you smoked weed, I was hallucinating like an acid trip. And this happened the first several times i was high on weed. Now it never happens again even after stopping weed for a year.

But do you still got high on Kratom but just not AS high on it?

Yeah, I mean I noticed today I did get a mild high off of 8 grams but it's just not the same kind of STIMULANT high I was once able to get or nearly as good as they used to be.

Yes I know what you mean about how weed was like tripping for the first 2 years I smoked it and then it never went back to feeling that strong again.

But why do you think I'd have been able to get that high BEFORE the 10 month break but not AFTER it?

Wouldn't it seem like it would be the other way around?

At least it DOES still work for me, and I think if I keep experimenting with different dosages and different strains that eventually I might get a similar high to some that I used to.

Actually I think I did for a while last week but now I'm questioning whether or not I felt that way the day I mixed it with F-Phenibut or another day, but I think the day I'm thinking of I didn't take F-Phenibut so it wasn't that.

Do you have any tips to get the more stimulating effect?

Would you just taking lower doses and lighter white and green strains like everyone else says?

I personally have never felt that white strains worked well for me but I like green ones.

And do you know of any good potentiators?

 

[cactus3]

I loved kratom before I tried other (real) opiates. Those didn't do anything for me, only ruined my kratom tolerance.


1 gram of kratom did more for me than 200mg oxy (instant) and 600mcg nasal fentanyl combined. I wish I knew that sooner.

My fav daytime mixes were red thai with green malay, and green thai with red bali iirc

For night, red bali and red borneo.

 

[Ziiirp]

Thats good man, congrats. Sounds like you're coming past it nicely. About how much were you using per day beforehand?

At my peak 8g daily (like 4-5 times 1.5g). Did a rather short taper to 6,4,2 and then 0. The doses are not olympic. But I was using several years (most years <6g daily), so I expect the after effects to linger for much longer. Atm I cannot complain. Took 2mg Lope today. But I have less obligations now, so I guess I can drop that also completely tomorrow.

I have to add, that my pheromone level must have increased significantly. Just saying : If you are a guy and in mild Kratom WD, talk to a lot of women and see the difference compared to your behaviour on Kratom (even if it just an illusion, it will make you feel better). It is a whole nother world.

 

[Mycophile]

Well I got a different strain from a different vendor and now I'm happy to see that I AM still able to get good effects from Kratom and actually at MUCH lower doses than before my 10 month break which is great to see and is what we'd usually expect would happen after such a long break, but what I'm finding is quite hard to get is that STIMULANT Kratom high you know?

That's actually my favorite thing about Kratom and I'm getting more of the sleepy or at least just relaxed high (which is of course nice) than the stimulant high.

Any tips on getting more of the stimulant high other than just taking lower doses and lighter (green and white) strains?

Those seem to be the common logic so I'm going to keep going with that.

I still don't quite know what is up with why I've been having so much trouble, but at least one factor seems to be the vendor as after trying this one I can immediately see the difference in quality and in fact, the second I even opened the package and smelled it I could smell how much stronger and better quality it was so I'm pretty sure I'll just be ordering from these guys from now on rather than the other one.

I guess it's just a combo of that and that my tolerance was so high but then I took such a long break so my brain is just not quite sure where my sweet spot is, coupled with the fact that Kratom is already an unusually fickle substance and strains differ in many ways.

The other factor of course is IMO it's often been difficult for me to tell if I've taken too little or too much because both can IMO result in not feeling high and my tolerance had gotten so high that what would seem a good sized dose might be too little or too much depending on the strength of vendor.

I know for a fact I've completely killed a good high by taking too much on top of a reasonable dose just to try to see if I could get a little higher, but obviously if you take too little you also don't get a good buzz.

I think the general way of knowing whether or not I've taken too much or too little is the absence of negative side effects like irritability, jiterriness, nodding out or "the wobbles": if i take too much I'll get those plus I won't feel high, whereas if I take too little I won't get them, but won't be high either.

 

[Ziiirp]

I loved kratom before I tried other (real) opiates. Those didn't do anything for me, only ruined my kratom tolerance.


1 gram of kratom did more for me than 200mg oxy (instant) and 600mcg nasal fentanyl combined. I wish I knew that sooner.

My fav daytime mixes were red thai with green malay, and green thai with red bali iirc

For night, red bali and red borneo.

Please stop exaggerating. Those doses could be fatal taken at once. Either your Kratom has been laced with o-desmethyltramadol or you are talking utter bs.

Epilogue : I read your other posts about struggling. Opiates seem to have you in their bonds at the moment. Why not go back to Kratom ? Switch to Kratom, taper down slowly (you choose the velocity) and in the end be free.

 

[Mycophile]

This is another question for you guys:

In terms of how bad Kratom WD can be, what do you think is the bigger factor: 1) how many days per week you dose or 2) how many grams per week/grams per day you dose?

I know that both are factors but I'm asking which you guys think is the bigger because I want to avoid letting myself get WD like I did a year ago.

Back 10 months ago and a couple years before that I was under this dumb crazy impression that if I could keep myself to only dosing, say, 3-4 days a week, it really wouldn't matter how many grams I used per day in terms of how bad my WD would be LOL.

Now I see how illogical that was as I got to using 16 gram doses twice per day and somehow rationalized that it would be ok because I never dosed more than 4 days a week and considered myself better off than even those who only dosed like 5 grams a day but did it every single day and never took a break.


Now I think that I actually think that the amount of grams you use in a week or in a day is probably more important than how many days per week you dose in terms of how bad the WD will be.

I mean I guess it's generally like the larger the dose you have in your system when it is exiting your bloodstream/body the worse it's going to feel and the the milder the WD right?

Or are they both equally important factors?

Do you guys think that if you normally dose, lets say, 5 grams a dose, that you would definitely be able to say that your WD will be milder than those who's doses are 10 grams, even regardless of how many days per week you dose?

 

[Ziiirp]

Yes, they are both equally important factors. Reflect, why you are taking Kratom in the first place. Does Kratom provide a solution for your use case ? Yes ? No ? If yes, is the dose maintainable ? No ? Why not stop for a while and see how it goes ? Kratom is not a overly obvious intoxicator, which screws up your plans when you stop taking it. It is subtle enough to fuck your life slowly and lure you into a mental space, where you think, that you are dependent, but you are actually NOT. You just think you are. The withdrawals are mostly mental.

If you take Kratom functionally to better perform in a certain task, that's your choice. But imho Kratom is a mental depressant. It inhibits mental growth. It is a sweet, subtle lie. There are moments in life, when you need that lie. But most of the time it is just counterproductive.

 

[Ziiirp]

I started taking Kratom regularly against chronic pain (after a serious fracture), later also as a stim substitute. After I stopped taking it I feel actually less pain in the affected area than while on it. Go figure.

This does not mean, you should stop NOW. Just reflect your use and beware, that you should not be scared of the WD at all. It is mere fearmongering.