Withstand Kratom Withdrawal
| Ⓒ By Jonathan Roseland |
I'm not a doctor, medical professional, or trained therapist. I'm a researcher and pragmatic biohacking practitioner exercising free speech to share evidence as I find it. I make no claims. Please practice skepticism and rational critical thinking. You should consult a professional about any serious decisions that you might make about your health. Affiliate links in this article support Limitless Mindset - spend over $150 and you'll be eligible to join the Limitless Mindset Secret Society.
Potentiating the positive and mitigating the adverse effects of Kratom
Kratom is a rare herbal biohack with a number of attractive attributes...
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The white strains have productivity-promoting motivational and anti-depressant effects.
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The green and red strains have a soothing anxiolytic effect that imbues some much-needed tranquility.
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It provides pain relief to the suffering.
- Helps opioid addicts taper off truly self-destructive drugs.
- Pleasant taste and aesthetics.
- Legal and highly accessible.
- It's affordable, low cost.
But there is a significant downside, Kratom is an addictive Opioid.
- It is habit-forming after just several weeks of usage.
- You will develop a tolerance to Kratom rapidly compared with Nootropics like Piracetam.
- As your tolerance increases, you will no longer get the beneficial performance-enhancing or anxiolytic effects from the dosage that used to work great, you'll need to take increasingly high or frequent doses just to maintain.
In this article, I'm going to discuss two pharmacological solutions for addressing Kratom addiction or withdrawal; the drugs Memantine and Selank. However, I would not recommend these drugs to just any casual Kratom user; there are a lot of better options than using these drugs. I'll discuss withdrawals themselves and the smart strategic usage of Kratom.
Kratom Withdrawals
Kratom users describe the withdrawals as uncomfortable but not excruciating typically for 2 -5 days but sometimes as much as a month.
Withdrawal symptoms can include things like irritability, restlessness, anxiety, cough, depression, etc
Disruption of sleep cycle; sleep apnea, insomnia, etc
Difficulty breathing and pulmonary problems
The majority of the anecdotal cases of negative withdrawals are from people using between 15 - 30 grams daily which seems like a pretty extreme dosage. These people should not be so surprised that there are consequences for that kind of excess.
Tapering Off
- A better solution to sustainable Kratom usage is tapering down or off Kratom every couple of months.
- Your dosage will inevitably creep up - when it does, do a 7-10 day taper; every day take like a quarter gram less of Kratom. You'll at least lower your maintenance dose.
- If you're like most Kratom users you will not get withdrawals from the taper itself, in fact, it might actually make you feel better.
Cycling
- I used Kratom for about 6 months and although I didn't find it as performance-enhancing as Nootropics, smart drugs like the Racetams or Adaptogenic herbs, I did like it quite a bit.
- I did not nor would I recommend that people use Kratom every day; I cycled Kratom with other Nootropics; using it 3-4 times a week.
- I did not find myself impulsively using it and did not experience any withdrawal symptoms at all when I ran out. However, I'm very lucky to NOT have an addictive personality.
Memantine
The NMDA antagonist is known within the Kratom community as a way to lower tolerance. No studies have been done on Kratom and Memantine specifically BUT there are two promising studies done with opioid addicts.
From a 12-week, placebo-controlled 2015 Chinese study that gave Memantine to 53 Methadone addicts. It concluded
We conclude that low-dose memantine might be a feasible adjuvant therapy for attenuating inflammation and inhibiting methadone tolerance.
From a placebo-controlled study of heroin addicts
Memantine attenuated the expression of opioid physical dependence in humans, indicating that glutamatergic neurotransmission at the NMDA receptor site contributes to the maintenance of opioid dependence. This finding suggests that memantine may be a useful adjunct in the treatment of opioid dependence.
One Kratom lover reported enthusiastically...
Over the past three weeks I have been taking 10 mg of memantine daily.
Since I have started doing this, all my Kratom has more of a stimulant edge. There is not a ton of added jitteriness or anxiety, but rather the get and go effects of each strain are more prominent.
Used to when I took 2.5 grams of a slow strain I would feel really chill and mellow. Now when I take this dose, I have the urge to physically get up and get my body moving and exercise, do yard work, etc...
If you want stronger effects from your kratom, or you need to reduce your tolerance, I recommend memantine.
However, Memantine is a bit of a double-edged sword as a drug, it seems to have a high occurrence of undesirable side effects but unlike Kratom, it hasn't killed anyone, so if your Kratom usage is becoming a problem, it is worth trying.
Selank
This anxiolytic Russian peptide will likely give you more bang for your buck from your Kratom. Two Russian studies combined it with an opioid benzodiazepine and found that it potentiated its desirable effects.
A 2015 study of 70 Russians found that it markedly decreased the negative side effects of the opioid
The combined treatment decreased the level of undesirable side-effects of phenazepam (attention and memory impairment, asthenia, sedation, increase in sleep duration, sexual disturbances, emotional indifference and orthostatism) during the course of treatment and after the tranquilizer withdrawal. Taken together, the therapeutic efficacy and reduction of side-effects had a positive impact on the quality-of-life of the patients treated with selank as add-on to phenazepam.
It concluded
The results extend therapeutic possibilities of treatment of [anxiety spectrum] disorders with the combination of benzodiazepine tranquilizers and selank.
From a recent human tolerability study of the two
Pronounced anxiolytic and mild nootropic effects of selank were demonstrated. The anxiolytic effect lasted for a week after last receiving the peptide.
Does this mean it's going to also mitigate the negative side effects and potentiate the desirable effects of Kratom? You'll have to try it yourself and find out...
I could not find a lot of Kratom addicts reporting anecdotal experiences with Selank and Kratom but world-class Biohacker MisterYouAreSoDumb reported on Reddit:
I find that tapering the dosage down over the course of two weeks, then using Semax, Selank, and Tianeptine during the transition, makes getting off [Kratom] easy. I used kratom 2-3 times per day for almost a year, and got off it with that protocol without any withdrawals. The Selank will slow the breakdown of your endogenous opioids, the Semax will give you the stimulation and dopamine edge you will be missing, while the Tianeptine will hit the opioid receptors just enough to keep you level. Overall, it was extremely easy to get off. I actually felt much better after the transition than while on kratom.
I would recommend Selank before Memantine because Selank is a very affordable and safe non-prescription Nootropic drug with a comparatively low occurrence of side effects.
Some other suggestions for mitigating withdrawals and healthy usage...
- Avoid Kratom extracts
- Drink Kava Kava
- Supplement Magnesium and Mucuna Pruriens
- Get out and do some exercise
Kratom alternatives
Rhodiola - The "King" of Adaptogen herbs
Siberian Ginseng - Physical performance-enhancer
Panax Ginseng - For mental health
Ashwagandha - For stress and anxiety relief
Turmeric - For natural pain-relief
Watch these videos to learn more about Kratom...
This article originally appeared on BodyHunter.CC
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