Kratom Kratom withdrawal death

[GetMeOutOfThisCRAP]

I tried to cold turkey it two days in a row. I know that's pathetic lol... but the symptoms were horrid. Worse than stone-cold oxy withdrawal undoubtedly for me. Mainly because I have religiously used it for so long. So ate some again to not feel like the grim reaper.

Basically couldn't eat, sleep, or do anything really besides sweat and freeze. Just perpetually so uncomfortable and depressed. How have you guys managed to quit? It literally seems to be worse than dopesickness personally and I know that's hard to believe. The withdrawal is too powerful for the minimal high. I've never had such a severe withdrawal even from high dose opioids cold turkey. Strange?

 

[negrogesic]

Yeah thats a little strange. Ive gone through withdrawal from so many different opioids (from IV heroin, to methadone, morphine, oxycodone to poppy pods, to tramadol, and even weird stuff, like tianeptine etc etc) but kratom withdrawal is unique in that it is much milder than other forms of withdrawal. It has a somewhat unique form of restlessness however.

It is also very short (the acute part) lasting a maximum of 5 days. Once you get past day 3 it lightens up quite abit. Of course, like with any opioid, the post acute period is a different story.

I quit a 30g/day run of kratom about 4 days ago and the yawning and joint pain has stopped. The anxiety and restlessness is almost gone but the depression and boredom are still present. I feel like going to get some kratom extract right now.

Note that I've quit kratom about 4-5 times this year. I rarely go straight for kratom but rather use it to get off of other things (like o-desmethyltramadol, tianeptine or 2-methyl-ap237). Obviously i still haven't figured this opioid thing out and would be much much better off if i didn't mess with it at all.

Its kind of like I'm going and sitting out under the sun to be warm for a bit, staying out too long and getting sunburnt. Then after recovering from my sunburn i go out and do the same thing again.

 

[negrogesic]

why, can you give description about the effect?

Of tianeptine? Reminds me of a dirty oxycodone, like a stimulating and somewhat edgy opioid.

 

[GetMeOutOfThisCRAP]

Yeah thats a little strange. Ive gone through withdrawal from so many different opioids (from IV heroin, to methadone, morphine, oxycodone to poppy pods, to tramadol, and even weird stuff, like tianeptine etc etc) but kratom withdrawal is unique in that it is much milder than other forms of withdrawal. It has a somewhat unique form of restlessness however.

It is also very short (the acute part) lasting a maximum of 5 days. Once you get past day 3 it lightens up quite abit. Of course, like with any opioid, the post acute period is a different story.

I quit a 30g/day run of kratom about 4 days ago and the yawning and joint pain has stopped. The anxiety and restlessness is almost gone but the depression and boredom are still present. I feel like going to get some kratom extract right now.

Note that I've quit kratom about 4-5 times this year. I rarely go straight for kratom but rather use it to get off of other things (like o-desmethyltramadol, tianeptine or 2-methyl-ap237). Obviously i still haven't figured this opioid thing out and would be much much better off if i didn't mess with it at all.

Its kind of like I'm going and sitting out under the sun to be warm for a bit, staying out too long and getting sunburnt. Then after recovering from my sunburn i go out and do the same thing again.

Well--I've withdrawn from harder things but inevitably those withdrawals made them far more bearable in general.

Since I've taken kratom daily for 3 years now... my body was not happy about trying to take a break. Also kratom use helped me escape the worst stuff (making me sicker than normal kratom withdrawal?) So the shorter half life makes it a lesser lasting withdrawal? That's good to hear lol

 

[negrogesic]

Well--I've withdrawn from harder things but inevitably those withdrawals made them far more bearable in general.

Since I've taken kratom daily for 3 years now... my body was not happy about trying to take a break. Also kratom use helped me escape the worst stuff (making me sicker than normal kratom withdrawal?) So the shorter half life makes it a lesser lasting withdrawal? That's good to hear lol

I would imagine kratom withdrawal after 3 years would probably be pretty bad. Ive only taken it for a few months at a time then quit. Still, the withdrawals were suprisingly mild.

And yes kratom is very short acting and so is the withdrawal. However while the opioidergic alkaloids are short acting i get the sense some of the other alkaloids are longer lasting which gives a sort of a unique multi stage withdrawal syndrome. Because kratom has a complex pharmacology the resulting withdrawal is also complex, making it most similar to tramadol withdrawal perhaps.

 

[JackARoe]

Hmmm, I know we throw out our experiences every once in a while and I do scratch my head. @GetMeOutOfThisCRAP I learned how dire fentanyl withdrawal can be after reading your posts on that. So you do have experience with opiates. We are chemical factories so here could be reasons.

I have been on and off for 16 years, mostly on for the better part of the last 8. I was on poppy tea on and off for about 15 years before that and before that heroin and methadone. But even with longevity on kratom the withdrwal has a ceiling for me. It seems gabapentin can wipe most of it out too. But I also view poppy tea withdrawal as one of the most dramatic things I ever went through when I did. I will say it again, I am worse off trying to stop 3 days in a row of poppy tea than a year of kratom. So it goes to show how different we can all be. Also with will power (which most of us DO NOT have lol) you could feasably taper off kratom with minimal discomfort.

One variable I believe plays a part is the time between using kratom. I have always used at 7:00AM and 5:00PM and on occasion go 24 hours without any. So my body knows what it is like to not have it and deals with it. I am sure if I took it every 4 hours (like I see a lot of people say) then it would hit harder. I think the withdrawal is like layers. So if someone wants off or just to lower putting more and more time between uses helps the body adjust. I wake up in the middle of the night slighty squirrely but I take a toke or two of strong cannabis and am back to sleep. I am not one to use it for sleep, I need to be hours out from my last use to sleep normal.

@GetMeOutOfThisCRAP, I learned a lot about fentanyl from your posts so just want to say thanks. You never know who is learning from posts. lol And from that I doubt I ever had fentanyl from the sound of it. All the heroin was either brown powder/black tar on the West Coast of the US and white powder on the East Coast. I have been out of the game over 30 years though.

 

[somnilicious]

I would imagine kratom withdrawal after 3 years would probably be pretty bad. Ive only taken it for a few months at a time then quit. Still, the withdrawals were suprisingly mild.

And yes kratom is very short acting and so is the withdrawal. However while the opioidergic alkaloids are short acting i get the sense some of the other alkaloids are longer lasting which gives a sort of a unique multi stage withdrawal syndrome. Because kratom has a complex pharmacology the resulting withdrawal is also complex, making it most similar to tramadol withdrawal perhaps.

I strongly believe that the component of kratom that gives long term users such excruciating withdrawal is not it's opiod effects but another mechanism because I also have never experienced difficult kratom withdrawal even after months of daily dosing and I have been addicted to opiates(heroin and methadone) for 22yrs. Most of my kratom use began at the end of a run on other opiods. I wouldn't even compare the two withdrawals because kratom was so much less severe in my case. Even 6mths of kratom use after a fentanyl run produced minor withdrawal for me.

I'm not discounting the reports from long term users claiming worse withdrawal than other opiates for them but In my opinion if it were the opiod component that caused the severe withdrawal then I would have been hit hard due to my opiod kindling. Therefore I believe that a good portion of the withdrawal severity comes from it's other mechanisms, which take time and everyday, constant, round the clock, dosing in order to develop seperate from it's opiod withdrawal syndrome.

 

[JackARoe]

Maybe it is the calcium channel blocking effect? Almost working like gabapentin and pregabalin. I have heard some posters saying gabapentinoid withdrawal was worse than opiate and benzo withdrawal and others say they didn't have any withdrawal coming off those meds. Maybe the range is due to that effect. The fact that gabapentin can aquash the withdrawal of kratom for me makes me think it is just covering it up. Then again gabapentin and pregabalin seem to take away different types of withdrawal and maybe it has nothing to do with it's action.

Just grasping at straws here. I guess kratom can be looked at as weak by some people and strong by others. My experience is the few people I introduced it to with the intention of using it to get off of stronger opiates wrote it off as ineffective. I was insulted!! I wanted people to say yeah this works great. A few went right out to score when the kratom did not hold them. Ah well, plenty of others that see how effective it is.

 

[Pillhead111]

I can’t imagine taking kratom for 3 years straight and actually still getting effects from it. If I take it for longer than a week, I can’t feel anything. Never had withdrawals from it either..

 

[bongdong]

It is also very short (the acute part) lasting a maximum of 5 days. Once you get past day 3 it lightens up quite abit. Of course, like with any opioid, the post acute period is a different story.

I quit a 30g/day run of kratom about 4 days ago and the yawning and joint pain has stopped. The anxiety and restlessness is almost gone but the depression and boredom are still present. I feel like going to get some kratom extract right now.

This sounds pretty accurate/familiar to me. I'm doing some WD too right now (again). It doesn't really help when it's -15 degree Celsius outside (that's 5 degree Fahrenheit for our non-metric friends ) when the body's temperature regulation is off to begin with. But it's also the 'mental coldness/grimness', that works on you.

Its kind of like I'm going and sitting out under the sun to be warm for a bit, staying out too long and getting sunburnt. Then after recovering from my sunburn i go out and do the same thing again

That's a good analogy. I think I burned myself 'good' the first time, so now when I'm out in the sun I naturally start thinking about going inside after a while, cause I remember my more fierce sunburn. Learning, ..that's what it's called I think. Yet, doesn't prevent me from going outside..

Since I've taken kratom daily for 3 years now... my body was not happy about trying to take a break. Also kratom use helped me escape the worst stuff (making me sicker than normal kratom withdrawal?) So the shorter half life makes it a lesser lasting withdrawal? That's good to hear lol

I can imagine that. But like @negrogesic said, I too think that day 3-4 is a tipping point (physically for sure, but also mentally), even with more severe use. At the end of my first naive and longest kratom streak 1,5 - 2 years, if I were forced to make a statistic, day 3 was the day of relapse for me. Perhaps a little motivation for you, to find out if that's true for you as well?

Have you pulled off a cold turkey WD from kratom before? Think this makes quite a difference too, when you know it and have something to compare it to, it becomes a little less personal I feel. I e.g. wrote a journal during my first WD, I don't look it up anymore, but I did so in the past and often I had to smirk because of how accurate my notes described how I felt. You could try to see it as a leraning experience, and fight through could turkey if you have never done it that way, it won't kill you. Nobody can take this experience away from you, once you have it! Or, like @JackARoe already said, taper if you're fed up with it, it's no rocket science. Keep going, good luck!

One variable I believe plays a part is the time between using kratom. I have always used at 7:00AM and 5:00PM and on occasion go 24 hours without any. So my body knows what it is like to not have it and deals with it. I am sure if I took it every 4 hours (like I see a lot of people say) then it would hit harder. I think the withdrawal is like layers. So if someone wants off or just to lower putting more and more time between uses helps the body adjust. I wake up in the middle of the night slighty squirrely but I take a toke or two of strong cannabis and am back to sleep. I am not one to use it for sleep, I need to be hours out from my last use to sleep normal.

I think this is a very valid and important point; and I don't recall having read this on here anywhere. I think the relatively short half-life of kratom is good thing, so using 24/7 (taking small doses in short intervalls) is the worst one can do with it, I believe. From the physical and mental side. I only use it once a day, evening, and what I noticed recently: after a longer period (months) I recognized feeling a bit cold in the afternoon. So basically I did a little bit of withdrawal every day, before the evening dose. Also, this way one doesn't neglect mental coping skills as quickly as to being in the kratom-cloud all day long not giving a shit, which makes the whole thing pretty manageable in many regards.

I hate so say it, because I don't want to endorse anybody, but if one refrains from a 24/7 use pattern, tolerance goes up very slowly and is down relatively quick again, which is great if you ask me.

Greetings. (Sorry for the monster-post.)

 

[4meSM]

I've been a daily kratom user since 2016 and I do use it multiple times a day in low doses. Regardless of that, I have never felt the need to wake up in the middle of the night to redose, and I actually feel every single dose I take (3-3.5g of powdered leaf). I sometimes take as low as 1.6-2g before going to bed and I still feel that.
I usually take it almost as soon as I wake up since it's my favorite dose of the day, but can still sleep for a long time without waking up dreached in sweat or having cold flashes or anything like that, even if it's been ~12h since my last dose.

I haven't really felt the need to quit yet so I can't really comment on that, I may experience pretty bad WD or maybe not, I guess we'll see (I plan to taper when the day comes though).

 

[bongdong]

I've been a daily kratom user since 2016 and I do use it multiple times a day in low doses. Regardless of that, I have never felt the need to wake up in the middle of the night to redose, and I actually feel every single dose I take (3-3.5g of powdered leaf). I sometimes take as low as 1.6-2g before going to bed and I still feel that.
I usually take it almost as soon as I wake up since it's my favorite dose of the day, but can still sleep for a long time without waking up dreached in sweat or having cold flashes or anything like that, even if it's been ~12h since my last dose.

I haven't really felt the need to quit yet so I can't really comment on that, I may experience pretty bad WD or maybe not, I guess we'll see (I plan to taper when the day comes though).

Mhm, interesting. That's quite some time. This probably depends on different things, e.g. your kratom, changing/rotating strains, breaks/skipping (or taking a day completely off (in my case this would be 48h, which certainly does something)), your metabolism, activity level, etc. What is 'multiple times a day' for you, typically? Or what do you think you average/day?

Would be nice if you'd share your experience when you decide to jump off or taper. You know, when folks eyeball dosages and stuff, reports aren't worth much. Would be more interesting (though less pleasant I presume) to just stop and look how it is/feels first, if it's too nasty you can still start tapering. All for science you know..

 

[4meSM]

Mhm, interesting. That's quite some time. This probably depends on different things, e.g. your kratom, changing/rotating strains, breaks/skipping (or taking a day completely off (in my case this would be 48h, which certainly does something)), your metabolism, activity level, etc. What is 'multiple times a day' for you, typically? Or what do you think you average/day?

Would be nice if you'd share your experience when you decide to jump off or taper. You know, when folks eyeball dosages and stuff, reports aren't worth much. Would be more interesting (though less pleasant I presume) to just stop and look how it is/feels first, if it's too nasty you can still start tapering. All for science you know..

Well I usually take ~3.3g around 5 times a day and sometimes a final dose of 1.6-2g, I always measure my doses but they vary a bit day by day. I think my average is 17-18g/day, I very rarely take more than 20g/day though. I haven't taken a break in years by the way...

In case someone is wondering, I get my liver enzymes checked (as well as other things) about once a year and they have always been within the normal range.

I've mentioned it before but my doses have remained pretty much stable for years because they still give me the desired effects. When my tolerance increased years ago I just felt like it became shorter-acting, which is why I increased the frequency but not the dose.

I have some theories about why people have such different experiences with kratom. Mitragygine itself has a pretty interesting pharmacology which might decrease tolerance development compared to other (more tipical) opioids.
But its active metabolite 7-OH-mitragynine seems to play a much bigger role regarding the opioid effects.
I think the genetic variability of CYP3A4 and CYP2D6 enzymes could explain those differences (or at least some of them).

I do get WD symptoms sometimes, yawning seems to be the most common one. If I'm too busy or forget to redose I might experience some restlessness, nothing major but my muscles start feeling funny. That hasn't really happened at night thankfully, only sometimes during the day.

 

[GetMeOutOfThisCRAP]

Hmmm, I know we throw out our experiences every once in a while and I do scratch my head. @GetMeOutOfThisCRAP I learned how dire fentanyl withdrawal can be after reading your posts on that. So you do have experience with opiates. We are chemical factories so here could be reasons.

I have been on and off for 16 years, mostly on for the better part of the last 8. I was on poppy tea on and off for about 15 years before that and before that heroin and methadone. But even with longevity on kratom the withdrwal has a ceiling for me. It seems gabapentin can wipe most of it out too. But I also view poppy tea withdrawal as one of the most dramatic things I ever went through when I did. I will say it again, I am worse off trying to stop 3 days in a row of poppy tea than a year of kratom. So it goes to show how different we can all be. Also with will power (which most of us DO NOT have lol) you could feasably taper off kratom with minimal discomfort.

One variable I believe plays a part is the time between using kratom. I have always used at 7:00AM and 5:00PM and on occasion go 24 hours without any. So my body knows what it is like to not have it and deals with it. I am sure if I took it every 4 hours (like I see a lot of people say) then it would hit harder. I think the withdrawal is like layers. So if someone wants off or just to lower putting more and more time between uses helps the body adjust. I wake up in the middle of the night slighty squirrely but I take a toke or two of strong cannabis and am back to sleep. I am not one to use it for sleep, I need to be hours out from my last use to sleep normal.

@GetMeOutOfThisCRAP, I learned a lot about fentanyl from your posts so just want to say thanks. You never know who is learning from posts. lol And from that I doubt I ever had fentanyl from the sound of it. All the heroin was either brown powder/black tar on the West Coast of the US and white powder on the East Coast. I have been out of the game over 30 years though.

Now that I'm not withdrawing from the fenty devil I do find it to be funny a bit. You're just struggling to get past every second with no will to live or do anything really. 1/10 life experience. I consider fent withdrawal to be the worst thing ever (without suboxone). It makes one wish they never existed lol. Fent withdrawal is also severely dehydrating, making it actually dangerous to withdraw cold turkey potentially if a heavier fent smoker or something like that. I never ever recommend anyone withdraw from fent cold turkey without suboxone strips or methadone. It literally is just the worst thing I've ever felt in my life lol. For some reason the depression from artificial analogues seems to be much worse in my opinion (mentally). The depression is too much even for opiate withdrawal in general. Regardless many have escaped fent dependency. It's definitely 100% doable but one will definitely suffer for a bit.

Regardless, I just think there are some strange effects specifically from kratom withdrawal. I have never felt so physically uncomfortable, as if my body was so dry and wet at the same time. Hard to explain. Either way, I'm screwed. I'll have to give it up eventually because I do not want to be 90 eating kratom with no effects Since kratom is still legal, I don't feel the same pressure to get off it though. I'm glad that it's legal because to force people off a benign substance with no potential of overdosing is beyond cruel.

 

[4meSM]

@GetMeOutOfThisCRAP
Out of curiosity, have you been taking kratom since you quit fent/oxy or did you spend some time without taking any opioids in between? Just wondering if you have gone through the complete withdrawal process.
I guess it's possible that your receptors (broadly speaking) never had the chance to recover from heavy opioid use, could be why kratom stopped working after a while.
Maybe the WD you felt a few days ago was (somehow) a mixture of regular kratom WD + some kind of delayed fent WD.
Or maybe it just affects some people way worse than others for an unrelated reason. I'm just trying to understand the situation.

 

[GetMeOutOfThisCRAP]

@GetMeOutOfThisCRAP
Out of curiosity, have you been taking kratom since you quit fent/oxy or did you spend some time without taking any opioids in between? Just wondering if you have gone through the complete withdrawal process.
I guess it's possible that your receptors (broadly speaking) never had the chance to recover from heavy opioid use, could be why kratom stopped working after a while.
Maybe the WD you felt a few days ago was (somehow) a mixture of regular kratom WD + some kind of delayed fent WD.
Or maybe it just affects some people way worse than others for an unrelated reason. I'm just trying to understand the situation.

This is kind of a drawn out and complicated story so I'll just say that I definitely had my on and off returns here and there for beyond kratom things.

I actually went 3 weeks with kratom-only incredibly recently and felt no opioid withdrawal whatsoever. I felt pretty good actually, lol. But I do notice that opioids do nothing for pain relief but kratom relieves pain pretty nicely. I think my body really is super adjusted to this stuff. Anyway after the posts here I guess it's going to be a severe withdrawal but short-lived. I just felt so uncomfortable quickly I got pretty scared.

The first time I discovered kratom I was on percocet pretty often actually. That was a while back. It shocked me how strong it was. But then again I think most people have a strong kratom experience the first few times and in comes some form of dependency.

As far as opioids go they still feel really good and euphoric. I don't seem so attached now though the feeling mentally alone became a little predictable. The only opioid withdrawal I would truly feel at this point would be if I decided to go the fent route again. But that sounds like a bad time lol. Kratom really helps me with depression, as depression for me is usually only a day or two but it can be quite strong. Sometimes it helps to have something extra.. weed helps but only so much.