Looking for help - personal experience, advice, or tips.

[Dleone32]

This is my first post.

Quick l little history, I’ve been taking kratom for something over two years. When I first started taking kratom, it was a godsend. It made me feel good, gave me energy, and took away my pain. After trying many different vendors I found some that work for me and after taking them for extended periods of time, they quit working. Even after cycling. I’ve moved up and down with dosage amount and been taking anywhere from 8g - 10 1/2g. I just can’t find anything that works for me anymore. Any tips or personal experience? I would really appreciate it.

I recently ordered from TKS. I’ve had some really poor customer service from them up until this last time. They are really high on their price in my opinion. The quality doesn’t seem to match the price in my experience. Maybe that’s because I’m doing something wrong? Idk. I would like to hear what others have to say.

Thanks in advance for your time.

[Celestial-Oceanic]

I'm assuming that by TKS you mean The Kratom Syndicate... they are way overpriced, sell the same kratom as the other vendors, and are known to send kratom to YouTube shills in exchange for their positive reviews. There are much better vendors out there.

Maybe you should try a break. 8-10.5g is a pretty large dose, and if you're not getting effects, that tells me that either the leaf you have sucks or that your tolerance is jacked up severely. I've used kratom for about five years and never came close to using 8-10.5g, simply by keeping my doses around 3.5-4g, setting a daily limit(and sticking to it), and taking about five days off every three months.

I'd try a nice break first. Taper with leaf and stem&vein if you must, but a week off would do your tolerance a lot of good IMO.

[Theanine]

This is my first post.

Quick l little history, I’ve been taking kratom for something over two years. When I first started taking kratom, it was a godsend. It made me feel good, gave me energy, and took away my pain. After trying many different vendors I found some that work for me and after taking them for extended periods of time, they quit working. Even after cycling. I’ve moved up and down with dosage amount and been taking anywhere from 8g - 10 1/2g. I just can’t find anything that works for me anymore. Any tips or personal experience? I would really appreciate it.

I recently ordered from TKS. I’ve had some really poor customer service from them up until this last time. They are really high on their price in my opinion. The quality doesn’t seem to match the price in my experience. Maybe that’s because I’m doing something wrong? Idk. I would like to hear what others have to say.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Are you taking 10 gram doses? If so, that is entirely too high, by two fold. It sounds like you have managed to build yourself full blown addiction. It is time for a taper. Or simply start lowering your doses and spacing them out more while adding a regimen of tolerance reducers. Tolerance to opioids is no joke, even Kratom is not harmless. I taper DAILY, at least 8 to 10 hours off Kratom every 24 hours plus tolerance reducers. Allows me to get Kratom's full benefits every day, through out the day. Failing to implement the above, you will likely end up simply maintaining your addiction without any actual mood lift, you would need to dose just to stave off the withdrawals, no good. Inter dose withdrawals are a sure sign here, and anytime you have to take more than 5 grams (2 teaspoons) per dose to feel the effects, it is time to stop and reconsider what it is that you're doing, or not and suffer the consequences, with doses that high, especially around the clock, your issues with tolerance would only worsen with time.....

[BallzDeep9]

Those guys really covered it. Celestial and Theanine, well said. Time to Re-set your tolerance, abusing kratom does not work.. I'll just Add, we do a Vendor List HERE which goes back to Reddit 2 years ago. TKS has never made the List - why, because as you say... Over priced and poor reputation. Good luck! Ignore those Shill videos on Youtube, I think maybe they are done by Russian hackers? lol

[javagurl62]

After discovering that the ‘less is more’ rule actually works, I was starting the day with 3 grams in my coffee and adding another 2.5 in my second cup. I started cutting back to 2 grams to start the day and adding on 1.5 or 1.75. I try to never take more than 3 grams in a single serving. I dose throughout the day because I take it for pain. If I’m going out, well, I have to work around that because I can’t Toss and Wash. I have found myself getting headaches in the evening and suspect it’s probably due to too much Kratom. If that happens, I’m done for the day. I just go chill and probably go to sleep. I read somewhere recently that if you stay at the lower dosage (3 grams or less), your tolerance pretty much stays checked. Kratom still works for me and quite well at times! Also, be mindful of extracts. Extracts can really raise your tolerance. I have some but have had the same bags of extract that I bought last winter. The others gave you some solid advice on how to cut back. You have to get to the point where 2.5 grams works for you. Then you can see if using the smaller amounts keeps your tolerance in check. Keep us posted as to your progress.

[Marie Wolff]

I would add that while taking a break, or cutting back, that you accompany that with liver-supporting herbs. I've been in the same boat and taking tinctures of things like dandelion and/or burdock really helped- not for detoxification, but for nourishment and support, drinking bone broth and eating other good things too. Whenever I take breaks (which is rare because I hate doing it) I always have cat's claw powder/capsules and skullcap tincture on hand for both day and night.

Buddying up with someone else that wants to take a break can be nice sometimes, too.

[Seacookie]

What exactly would be some tolerance reducers? Didn't know there was such a thing besides tapering.

[Oletimer]

Java, your doses are about same as mine,,and I have to dose according to pain,,less is better works,,,some folks,like my SON,,,are use to a big ole scoop of powder,,he needs t break, says it just makes him tired,,that's cause it's too much,,he looks on here for suggestions, ,I hope he reads these posts,,and gets it through his head,,at least try it,,,he doses for mood and to make it through a 10 hour shift,repetitive job, ,a few aches and pains too,, Good luck dleanne

[Theanine]

What exactly would be some tolerance reducers? Didn't know there was such a thing besides tapering.

Search this forum for "tolerance reducers", and you will find a LOT of information already posted. In the past month, we have been discussing Kratom usage mitigating techniques such as adding tolerance reducers or doing a daily taper and a regular taper as well as ways to potentiate Kratom's positive effects. If, after reading the above, you still have specific questions, we will gladly answer them for you! It's just a lot of information to share which has already been shared here many times. Perhaps, there needs to be a dedicated Tolerance Reducing/Tapering thread to address those very important issues.

[Marie Wolff]

On an old k forum, there was a sticky called "Tapering toolbox" with specific information about nutrition leading up to and then during a taper/quit, and then information re: how to maintain a low tolerance. I have it in my email somewhere, I could post it. Could we start a thread?

[Theanine]

On an old k forum, there was a sticky called "Tapering toolbox" with specific information about nutrition leading up to and then during a taper/quit, and then information re: how to maintain a low tolerance. I have it in my email somewhere, I could post it. Could we start a thread?

I have my own taper schedule and tolerance reducing regimen, it works very well for me. I have previously shared it with the group.

If you have another resource, then please share it. Depending on how old it is, it may not have all of the current knowledge, but I am sure that it will help!

[Seacookie]

Search this forum for "tolerance reducers", and you will find a LOT of information already posted. In the past month, we have been discussing Kratom usage mitigating techniques such as adding tolerance reducers or doing a daily taper and a regular taper as well as ways to potentiate Kratom's positive effects. If, after reading the above, you still have specific questions, we will gladly answer them for you! It's just a lot of information to share which has already been shared here many times. Perhaps, there needs to be a dedicated Tolerance Reducing/Tapering thread to address those very important issues.[/quote]

Jeez I'm an airhead sometimes. I didn't even think about the search bar. I tired googling it and couldn't really find anything Thanks Theanine, down the rabbit hole I go!

[DrFappingston]

I'm copying and pasting a post I made in another thread yesterday because it's relevant here and there's no purpose in rewording the same things again:

I've been taking the DLPA and Cat's Claw twice a day per @Theanine suggestions in another thread for about a week now and it does seem to make my servings a bit punchier, not to mention I went from 4-5g to 2g at the same time. I was doing this before, not specifically because of the supplements. I'll play the bell curve from 2g to about 6g then cut back down to 2g again, raising the dose 0.5 to 1g when it loses effectiveness which is about every 2-3 weeks I think.

Best of luck getting that dose and tolerance down: I'd highly recommend tapering down and then completely stopping for a couple of weeks at least if you're able to do so and maintain an acceptable quality of life... Then start again and use a method like I've been to start low and stay low.

To put it simply, kratom has opioid agonists and opioid antagonists. Opioid antagonists build up and lessen the effects of the leaf. The antagonists have a higher half-Life in your body and will build up quickly with repeated used at high doses. This is why, at least for me, I get a lot of diminished effects with doses above about 4g. You've got to keep doses low enough and spaced enough that you are able to retain as many agonists without the antagonists diminishing the effects. That's the basic science behind the "Bell curve" of effectiveness and why it's so important to find your "sweet spot". It's about 6am and I'm just scrolling through before I head off to work... Someone else might be able to explain this better than I currently, or I'll come back later and edit to elaborate a bit more.

[Theanine]

Best of luck getting that dose and tolerance down: I'd highly recommend tapering down and then completely stopping for a couple of weeks at least if you're able to do so and maintain an acceptable quality of life... Then start again and use a method like I've been to start low and stay low.

To put it simply, kratom has opioid agonists and opioid antagonists. Opioid antagonists build up and lessen the effects of the leaf. The antagonists have a higher half-Life in your body and will build up quickly with repeated used at high doses. This is why, at least for me, I get a lot of diminished effects with doses above about 4g. You've got to keep doses low enough and spaced enough that you are able to retain as many agonists without the antagonists diminishing the effects. That's the basic science behind the "Bell curve" of effectiveness and why it's so important to find your "sweet spot". It's about 6am and I'm just scrolling through before I head off to work... Someone else might be able to explain this better than I currently, or I'll come back later and edit to elaborate a bit more.

Dosage variation is a very effective tolerance reducing technique. It is possible that strain rotation achieves the same as dose variation, but likely there is more to it than that. Differing spectrum of alkaloids is the key here.

I am very interested in the concept of Kratom opioid antagonist build up. Which antagonists actually build up? Is there any research available? I would like to explore that possibility rather than simply blaming everything on the tolerance build up. As with any drugs, higher doses lead to increased habituation to the substance, which in turn diminishes their effects. ALL opioids are like that, even single chemical pharmaceuticals which have NO opioid antagonists in their formulation. All we need is the half life of Kratom's opioid antagonists to see if there is the potential for them to accumulate in our systems. Long half lives would indicate that it might be so, short half lives would mean that there is in fact no accumulation happening as those alkaloids would exit our systems along with the Kratom's main opioid agonists.

The more Kratom you take, the more your tolerance builds, causing you lack of positive effects and a need to increase the dosage.
However, antagonist build up is a completely different process here. I think if this was really the case, then high dosages of Kratom would actually decrease your tolerance due to the amount of opioid antagonism present, especially if there is accumulation. However, such is not the case. High Kratom doses lead to a full blown opioid addiction which wouldn't happen if the opioid antagonists were actually accumulating and antagonizing those Mu receptors.

So, at this point, I do not concur with your assertions of opioid antagonist accumulation, not yet. I shall reserve my final judgment on this when I am presented with at least some evidence. However, you may very well be correct, but we can't assume anything without proof, can we?
Personally, I have not noticed such an accumulation after 1 year of use. Perhaps, it can NOT be just noticed. Maybe so.

Either way, thus far, this has been a mere thought experiment on my part. Without any actual data, we are all just guessing here. I want research!

[DrFappingston]

Perhaps I should have prefaced with "to my knowledge" or a similar caveat as, of course, I'm not a scientist or anything of the sort. However, this has been my understanding from reading similar accounts on different platforms.

I will attempt to locate some sources to cite my post and edit them in here. Granted, I'll likely not come up with much more than aligning anecdotal evidence, as is the nature with kratom, unfortunately. For what it's worth though, I can at least elaborate on what I'm saying and why I'm saying it.

I appreciate the civil debate. It's refreshing, not surprising necessarily for this board specifically... But the internet overall. Give me just a few minutes, I've just pulled into work.

[DrFappingston]

Decided against editing since that won't notify you of a reply:

I've gotten lucky, it seems and immediately found a post on Reddit that more eloquently and scientifically explains the occurrence I attempted to... I will find more sources as I can since, clearly one source does not a fact make.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kratom/comment ... r_partial/

Edit: Even so, within this post there are vastly dissenting opinions, of course, we don't truly know... But that explanation makes sense to me. Without the scientific background, I'm not in a particularly advantageous position to argue the point.

[Theanine]

Decided against editing since that won't notify you of a reply:

I've gotten lucky, it seems and immediately found a post on Reddit that more eloquently and scientifically explains the occurrence I attempted to... I will find more sources as I can since, clearly one source does not a fact make.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kratom/comment ... r_partial/

Good read. However, it does not at all comment on the accumulation of opioid antagonists, but rather describes a so called "ceiling effect" which is in fact related to Mitragynine's PARTIAL Mu agonism and other Kratom alkaloid Mu antagonism. Both of those factors contribute to the limiting effects of ever increasing Kratom dosages. However, this is not accumulation, in fact that article does not address that issue at all, no half lives of different Kratom opioid antagonist alkaloids were discussed.

Yes, ever increasing Kratom dosages produce diminishing results, but it is not due to accumulation of one or another chemical, it is simply a sum total of ever increasing antagonism. The accumulation may or may not happen, this is a different process entirely. You assert that as you take Kratom, certain alkaloids (Mu opioid antagonists) retain and do not clear the system along with other alkaloids, so far we have no evidence of that. The negative effects of high Kratom dosing is not due to accumulation but rather a simple antagonism which would be increased with the increased dosages, more kratom, more opioid antagonists, more diminishing returns. Remember, Mitragynine is only a PARTIAL opioid antagonist, understanding what that is is the key here. This is what that article is referring to, Mitragynine agonizes those opioid receptors only to a certain degree, adding more of it, after a certain point, does NOT provide better effects. However, that increase in dose also increases the level of opioid antagonists, significantly diminishing Kratom's positive opioid effects. However, this is NOT accumulation but rather an expected effect of Partial Mu agonism, and full Mu ANTAgonism. If the antagonists also build up in our systems, then as we continue to dose Kratom, very soon its opioid effects would simply not be there. I personally dose at least 4 times per day, every day, day after day, day in and day out, keep up at it, for a year now. Still get 100% positive effects, which I wouldn't if I had those antagonists surging through my veins! What with only a PARTIAL opioid agonism of Mitragynine, I would feel NO OPIOID effects at all if such accumulation actually occurred. I am not here to debunk you or anything like that, your input is valuable to me and the group. I am simply attempting to get at the truth here. Let us continue our research!

[DrFappingston]

I think there is a misunderstanding where accumulation is concerned, I was referring to specifically the short-term life of the agonists vs antagonists with the agonists wearing off before the antagonists, therefore diminishing the effects of re-dosing within a short time frame; the half-life of the antagonists being in your system longer than the agonists. From what I've read, optimally (though each person's body chemistry is different) waiting 4-5 hours between doses, more apparent at higher doses, yields better effects due to the antagonists from dose A stacking onto those from dose B whereas the former agonists have already left. I feel the same could be said for larger doses, though not as severe which is where the need to find a "sweet spot" comes in. The dose at which you're intaking the optimal agonist vs ant- ratio. I believe that at some point, absent of tolerance to either one from desensitisation of the opioid receptors, there is a point at which the agonists are overpowered by the antagonists. Granted, this is just an amalgamation of various things I've read and could be wholly unfounded in reality, complete pseudo-science. Unfortunately, I am not educated enough to know for certain. That's why I frequent these forums and attempt to gather as much information as I can and from that, form my own opinions based upon my limited knowledge and what makes the most sense to me.

I too, take kratom multiple times a day. I log every time I dose and try to maintain a semi-schedule in order to ensure the maximum efficiency. I tend to have a dose every 3-4 hours at 2-3g and find that often I'll extend that to 4-5, especially when I'm at the top end of my dosage range (4-6g). I average at the low end, 8-12g/day and 16-20g/day at the high end.

Please forgive my lackluster replies at this point, I'm at work and on mobile since it's perhaps not in my best interest to frequent a "herbals" forum on my work computer for fear of IT questioning 1) why I'm not working and 2) what the hell is a "kratom"?. If we're continuing this be tonight I'll be at home with all the time in the world. Feel free to PM me, I thoroughly enjoy finding new information, learning and having constructive discussion with someone else whom, I assume, feels the same.

[Theanine]

Good point, DrFappingston! Initially, I had assumed that you were referring to LONG TERM antagonist build up rather than some intra dose accumulation.

You must remember, that even with regular opioids, which are FULL agonists, repeated dosing in short time intervals significantly diminishes their effects without ANY opioid antagonism involved. In fact, Kratom seems to be far more forgiving than regular opioids when it comes to repeat dosing. Sure, there is some opioid antagonism there, but it is not that significant. Another interesting point is that opioid antagonists are known to reduce opioid tolerance, so taking HIGH Kratom dose should reverse your tolerance due to the predominance of opioid antagonism at that point. I do not believe such occurs, high doses mean worse addiction/habituation/tolerance. Based on this model, why would it be so? I think that there is indeed some opioid antagonism happening, but I doubt that it is cumulative (build up), unless you literally dose every hour.

In any case, we can discuss this ad nauseam, but without some new facts, we are just going in circles. I am still not entirely convinced that this opioid antagonism is significant enough to yield a serious diminishment in effects, I tend to think that this decrease in effects related to tolerance formation, just like with all other regular opioids, perhaps to a lesser extent.

[Jeytek]

Can you recommend 1st time capsule dosage?

Thanks in advance

[BallzDeep9]

Can you recommend 1st time capsule dosage?

Welcome to Double MM! you are Reply'ing to a thread from FOUR years ago... brings back memories! LOL

[Kelleytoons]

Can you recommend 1st time capsule dosage?

But to answer your question (LOL) - you will be better served buying a micro scale (not expensive - you can get a really good one for less than $20 and I think the one I'm using is even less than $10 from Amazon) and weighing your capsules. That's because even those will vary (I know - I make my own). Then you can subtract .1 gram per capsule (because that's about what they weigh) and know for sure your dose.

As a VERY general rule 4-5 capsules is plenty - even the very largest seldom hold more than .5 kratom powder, and thus that gives you around 2 - 2.5 grams, which is plenty for a dose.