Ever Tried Kratom?

It's an unregulated drug in the US (except some states have banned it) and can be bought from vendors. There's been some political backlash towards it with the media shilling for pharmaceutical companies about muh opioids, although being a great alternative to deadly opiates.

I don't want this to be political but just wondering if anybody has tried it. I've been experimenting with it for about 3 days and was skeptical at first. The euphoria and numbness you get is great. It's rather stimulating like coffee but also sort of acts like a sedative at the same time.

I just started fall semester again at college and I was pretty impressed by the effects. No anxiety, focused, talkative, helps my chronic pain, and wakes you up.

I've known about Kratom for years, but I never felt the desire to try it myself but then again, I work in a Hospital, so I really can't do it due to drug test I gotta take every year but I will say this.

kratom isn't nearly as harmful as opiates. The withdrawals aren't nearly as bad from what I heard. If we were really worried about the public's safety cigarettes, alcohol, junk food, and most prescription drugs would be illegal. It's nothing about helping people and everything about helping the drug industry. I known only 2 people who have tried and like Kratom and it got them off doing heroin and saved their lives too. The only drug I'm addicted is sex and if you were to tell me Kratom can kick the habit of my addiction, I'll gladly try it.....I just need a 2 weeks vacation to do so lol.

Also, there is a petition for the White House not to list it as a S1 drug but I don't know if it's still going though.

Just get on any old antidepressant. They're notorious for killing the mojo.

@davillain-: Is it well studied? This Kratom drug...

Just googling it shows some severe health risks and overdoses.

Kratom wasn't made in a Drug Manufacture, it is considered unsafe and illegal in most states here. It isn't very well study and if you overdose, you'll throw up or get a heart attack and not as safe as smoking regular cigarettes. It's not well study due to being illegal and cannot get a proper study but some states will allowed Kratom to be use to the public.

Yes I used to be a kratom user in my younger 20's and I have full experience and understanding of the drug and the types of effects it causes on the brain and body.

I must say the most frustrating thing about kratom are the users that are purists that swear by their own graves over just how beneficial and non-threatening it is towards the human wellbeing. Those kratom purists are WRONG no matter how many times they try to justify why people should use kratom.

Kratom is all fun and games when you first start using it, and it seems seemingly harmless to take. It gives a great sense of euphoria and it can make the most mundane things seem exciting. The thing about kratom, is it's an addictive drug. If you do lesser amounts of it you might not see the addictive followup, but the more you use it the more you boost up your dosage. You might have started taking kratom once a day, but eventually you might end up taking it twice a day-or even- 3 or 4 times.

Eventually you are highly dependent on the drug. Kratom, what it does: it affects the opiate receptors in your brain and it will cause your brain to crave more and more of that stuff. Let me just make it clear: kratom is in the same family of drugs such as heroin, morphine, oxytocin, and others. Would you consider doing any of those drugs for pleasure? If you're sensible for your own health, I'm pretty sure you'd say no.

Now admittedly, kratom is not potent like the other drugs, but it's hardpressing to know it's in the same family as those drugs.

From my personal experience, I did eventually get addicted, and the moment I realized that I cut it cold-turkey, and then the withdrawal phase that went on months after cutting cold-turkey, SUCKED. One of the worst holes I dug myself into in my whole life. I questioned myself if my psyche was ever going to be normal again. Luckily today it's been over 7 years since I touched kratom and I have no desire to do it ever again. I certainly recovered from an addiction, but let me just tell you how awful it was getting off of it.

Do whatever you want to do, but be responsible. Don't let a kratom purist spread you with optimistic lies about the substance (that's what they all try to do), and you best learn the dark side of the substance as well.

Drugs are bad, M'kay.

Pretty much this.

Maybe it's because I was once a regular user of kratom and thus I've been around other kratom-users - but the one thing that has always baffled my mind is just how much the kratom purists like to make it out like kratom is any less of a drug than others. There is a substantial lack of research on the substance and for the longest time it's been unregulated, and thus that has given the purists a reason to paint the picture that kratom is not bad for you.

All I gotta say is it's about time the shit's becoming illegal. It's been unregulated for too long, and I know this out of my own personal use of the drug and the negative effects it had on my life.

@jaydan: That's a fantastic tale of a experience, thanks for sharing and gave me more insight what Kratom is all about.

Focus on your studies w/o such crap in your system.

I never even heard of it. No idea where I'd go to get it around here either.

yeahhhhhh I think I'll pass then.

no I never tried it.

Honestly, with all the great cannabis breeding, and different amounts and variances in THC and CBD, I don't understand why anyone would do something like Kratom.

Anxiety? Depression? Lack of appetite? Can't sleep? Ingest or inhale some cannabis.

I mean you don't even need the mental high to get the physical benefits from it.

My experience with Kratom has been a positive one. I use it as needed for severe chronic pain, with no issues.

For one: kratom is an herbal substance that grows from trees,

and number 2: just because a substance is natural or synthetic does not pose a viable metric whether or not something is good for you in the first place.

It turns out there are naturally grown substances that are bad for you and there are synthetic substances that are better for you. It's a huge misconception - a huge metric that does not work - that typical drug-users like to go by.

My best advice: do your research, if you ever consider taking any drug - whether it's something you got off the street or in a doctor's office. Straying away from these types of myths and instead researching the chemistry and effects behind a substance is your best bet for knowledge.

Before Kratom I was just smoking weed and still got straight A's. Not encouraging to do what I did though. I do what works for me.

I went through chemo for 4 years and chronic pain is unbearable sometimes.

I'm no Kratom purist and I'm aware of the adverse effects. I know it may not work for everyone too.

It works for me though with my needs (pain and anxiety). I don't plan on using it as a long term prescription, more like waves of prescribing myself like I still do with weed to lower my tolerance and minimize withdrawals (weed gives me headache withdraws).

I also don't want to destroy my gut, liver, or heart.

I've tried going to school high and it never worked for me in terms of productivity. I prefer weed in social situations or to sleep or when I'm having a bad pain day. It helped knock me out during those stressful and painful days grinding my ass through school and work.

What I briefly read on the matter, well, stick with the M.J. The sedation, pleasure and decreased amount of pain seems alright but the negative effects don't seem fun.

@Gaming-Planet: Well there will always be reasons why it could be beneficial for certain cases. While kratom is in the opiate family of drugs, it is by no means anywhere close to being as bad as something like heroin. If you are a drug addict of other substances, kratom might actually be a good thing to try out to level people out of drug addictions. I know kratom has been especially helpful to heroin addicts trying to get off their addiction.

If you have medical problems, I can understand why kratom is useful. Kratom and weed are also nothing alike. You do not get the same feelings off the two.

My point to any curious posters/readers here: if you have no reason to be doing kratom, then you probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place. I myself: I had no reason to be doing kratom back when I was doing. It all started out with a coworker introducing me to it, understand the hype it makes one feel "stoked" on life. At the time that was enough for me to help me get through a mundane job, and it worked.

My problem was while I started out taking kratom one time a day, eventually I started taking it three to four times a day, and I began getting super dependent on the drug. Since you are taking kratom, I know you are familiar with the come-down phase. It pretty much takes your energy away you can probably take a great nap - OR you can take more kratom and spruce you right up. That was my trap. After I identified with being addicted to the drug after several months of using it regularly, I decided to cut cold-turkey and then the worst withdrawal I had, I went through.

At the time I felt pretty alienated with my withdrawal and the crippling depression it brought me. At first I questioned if my psyche was permanently damaged and I will never see or feel a positive aspect of life again. I was very afraid of that possibility. I ended up finding different corners of the internet forums where other kratom users were sharing their own horror stories, and for the first time I found people that were going through exactly what I was going through. I eventually fully recovered but damn - looking back at it, that time sucked ass and I'm just glad I'm not dependent on it anymore.

I learned that the kratom purists will never share the ugly side of the substance and insist it's all a hoax that kratom can have such negative influences, but I fucking lived through the horror of the substance so every time I hear anyone mention the drug these days hyping it up, I can't help but roll my eyes every time someone tries to introduce it or hype it up, because I know they are misled.

With that said, kratom is not the worst drug in the world, but if you have no reason to be using it then stay away. There's no reason to risk the negative side-effects including addiction.

I'm the same way; in fact, I can't even do it socially. I get pretty paranoid as I am already pretty self-conscious. We have some really good dispensaries around where I live and while they're not doctors, a lot of the people know exactly what to "prescribe" for what ails you. I told them I need something to slow down my brain to help with my anxiety, help me sleep, and so forth and they're like "Oh try this tincture that a 3:1 ratio of CBD to THC" and sure enough it helps.

For me it's a very introverted thing, and I do it either to relive aches and pains, help me with sleep, and so forth. I must be getting old, because I find myself saying "It's not even about the high (THC) anymore, it's just about the CBD to make me feel better"

So far I've stuck to teaspoon a morning (that can vary in grams about 4-6 grams). While it does help with some of my chronic pain my interest towards the drug was because of my mental health. I'm taking a break now after doing 1 week.

I've gone through a pretty traumatic life from childhood to adult and my life as of late has been feeling rather withdrawn, low energy, disconnected, and depressed. Haven't had a single suicide thought since experimenting with Kratom for a week at the same dose. Sometimes I just feel totally disengaged and disassociated with the world and people around me.

So far I know that my honeymoon phase is over as I can already feel the tolerance build up from my experiment with it for 1 whole week at similar doses in the morning with the same strain. The numbing effect isn't as potent and the mood effects it gives doesn't last the whole 5 hours like it used to.

I can see why this drug can be harmful to some because they could become dependent and increase the dose to unsafe levels to get the same desired effect.

So far my experience:

Very talkative to people and feel comfortable having random conversations. Something I couldn't do since I was like 12.

People enjoy my customer service.

Coordination gets a little worse the first hour.

Anxiety and suicide thoughts almost non-existence.

Felt present for once.

Sleepiness the day after or couple hours later (not sure if this is Kratom. It was a busy first week too)

Mind you I've been off SSRI's for a whole year after taking them for 7 years.

I've never tried it. I know that there is not much on clinical data for efficacy, safety in pregnancy/lactation, and drug interactions. I also know that there's a lot of information regarding contraindications and adverse reactions.

While clinical data is lacking for drug interactions, there have been serious and fatal reactions that have been reported when it was mixed with caffeine, fentanyl, morphine, and others. Yeah no, I love my caffeine.