I’ve tried Chameleon and Valyrian root tea blends before thinking they might make good sleep aids, but I’ve never had any luck with them. A lot people say they find those very relaxing, but I wasn’t even catching a placebo effect.
So for a while I just assumed all this herbal tea bullshit I see in stores and pharmacies must be just a step above homeopathic products. They’re probably pretty good if you like the taste of the herbal blends and find sipping a warm beverage relaxing in itself, but otherwise a waste of time. Clearly if they really worked they wouldn’t be sold in large supermarket chains. Instead they’d be relegated to the weird, near grey market status that Kratom seems to exist in, right?
Today at the store I just happened to notice something very alarming. A box of Kava blend tea was the absolute one and only herbal tea variety on the shelf to include a warning asking you to consult your doctor before use, and stating that minors and pregnant women should not consume this product.
Well, that warning instantaneously lit up the junkie addict center of my brain like a Christmas tree, and I impulse bought two boxes. This might have major negative health consequences? Wow, must be the fucking good stuff. I got home and brewed six of them into a single mug of tea, and yep, this shit is psychoactive all right. Subtle, but definitely not placebo subtle. It quite honestly feels similar to a moderate dose of Gabapentin, and it’s making me sleepy.
I sure wish I knew this before I most likely took 15 years off the lifespan of my kidneys by using 200mg of Diphenhydramine every night for years just to have a fighting chance at falling asleep more often than every two days.
honestly what’s the deal with kratom? I see it sold in sus looking stores here ?
All i know about kava is i stumbled upon a reddit thread about it and it had a bunch of comments of (presumably) white people who were like nooo it’s actually not cultural appropriation to take and sell indigenous plant used for ceremonies. I don’t know anything about that but if i was consuming kava i’d try to buy direct from indigenous people, same as coffee.
Kratom helped me a ton when I was in a debilitating depression. I was finally able to start doing something besides sleeping, watching TV and eating. I was able to start exercising, taking care of myself again.
I took the same dose twice a day, and got less effect from it over time, but it happened gradually while my depression got better. After 9 months I stopped taking it and had withdrawals. I had to go back on it and taper down. I did it super slow, 10% reduction per week just because I was scared of falling back into depression.
I didn’t feel like it was addictive, but it does cause withdrawals if you stop taking it abruptly. The same thing can happen with most psych meds too, though. I lost 6 months to terrible withdrawal from a prescribed psych med even though I tapered it.
Kratom is an opioid. Wonderful for chronic pain, but insanely addictive if concentrated.
huh, thanks :)
It’s an opioid. The uhh the kratom…the kratom boy is actually in the coffee family, so it isn’t an opiate, but the most fun alkaloid acts on several opioid receptors. It’s used to treat opioid dependence, and the DEA doesn’t like that.
Kratom is a plant containing several natural opioids. These are fully structurally distinct from the classical opioids like Codeine or Morphine and their semi-synthetic derivatives like Oxycodone, Heroin, Hydromorphone, etc. But they activate the same receptors in the brain, and produce a very similar high.
It’s currently legal in most US states, but the DEA really wants to criminalize it more and more as it grows into mainstream awareness. Thankfully it looks like they’ve yielded to popular backlash against scheduling it for the time being. While Kratom is an opioid, it is honest to god the safest opioid in existence. The most abundant active substance is only a partial agonist at the mu-opioid receptor (the primary receptor responsible for mediating the euphoric effects of opioid drugs). As a result, it is extremely difficult to fatally OD on the stuff, there isn’t enough respiratory depression to halt breathing even at high doses, and it has a ceiling effect that prevents the out of control dose spiraling typical of attempts to compensate for growing tolerance with full agonist opioids. That said, Kratom does produce at least one full agonist opioid, but the concentrations are comparatively low enough to be ignored unless you’re using an extract.
This combination of accessibility, legality, and safety profile makes Kratom a very popular and effective drug to use as an aid to quit harder opioids. If you have a tolerance to harder opioids you won’t be able to effectively get high on Kratom thanks to the ceiling effect, but it will seriously take the edge off unless you were accustomed to large fentanyl doses.
It is also one of the only means of finding pain relief now that doctors almost universally transform into cops when it comes time to discuss being prescribed opioids.
(I just noticed that your comment is ambiguous, you’ve mentioned Kratom and Kava, but I’m not sure if you meant to only ask about Kava. The two are completely unrelated drugs with different effects and mechanisms of action. The only similarity between them is that they are both plant based drugs that have slipped through criminalization in the US.)
Also, I’m not aware of any cultural appropriation concerns with either of them, and they are not at risk of extinction like Peyote cactus is.
I’ve been taking it for a couple years now and it’s really nice. To avoid dependence I only take it every two or three days, but honestly for me it’s not even as addictive as weed, which it helped me stop (I was smoking nonstop every day, now I have maybe a dab every 2 or 3 weeks). Nice subtle tingly high, makes you feel light and airy, eases pain both physical and emotional. Takes away my depression for a bit. It’s not something you can really get wrecked off of, it just kind of…makes your day nicer.
Oh, and it amplifies the effects of alcohol, so if you’re safe about it you can also use it to get drunker for cheaper.
I do gotta say you can def get wrecked on just the leaf. I had an outing with my college and took some and had to throw up on the side of the road. As long as you dose low though and not like a junkie like me you’ll be fine.
Kratom is a mild partial opiate and can relieve pain, anxiety and depression, while also acting like a stimulant. Its not something that will knock you out, most people can function fine while on it, but it can give you a warm somewhat euphoric feeling. Inner peace, for a few hours, I guess.
People compare some of the effects to Adderall but ive never taken that so who knows. Small amounts help me focus, but i deal with a lot of physical and mental exhaustion due to my job, so i figured it helps me mentally by relieving those issues, but maybe i have some form of undiagnosed ADHD.
I’ve been taking it for a few years, and it basically allowed me to stop binge drinking, and then quit altogether. The anxiety you get when you’re desperate for alcohol would be pretty overwhelming to me, but kratom drastically alleviated that, and the effect lasts for a day or two for me, and last year I just quit drinking outright.
Lots of potential for dependant, being an opiate, and it shres some side effects, so you should be careful about habitual use. Although whatever is in it doesn’t seem to suppress the your basic body functions, so risk of passing out and suffocating is minimal unless you really go out of your way. Consuming a lethal amount is hard to do if you’re just taking it in powder form, as you’d likely throw it back up. For this reason I would avoid extracts.
But, yeah, my health has improved tremendously since I’ve been able to stop drinking. For some people it doesn’t work that way, but from what ive read a lot of people share my experience.