The Kratom Guide

Strictly spoken it is a tree originating from South East Asia. The scientific name is mitragyna speciosa, and it is native to the remote regions of South East Asia.

It is a distant relative to the coffee plant. Colloquially spoken however Kratom usually denotes the leaves, or parts of these leaves, or extracts from these leaves or their parts that contain chemical agents specific for the Kratom plant. Such agents are generally called alkaloids.

Simply spoken: when you encounter the word Kratom, it usually means a drug or herbal remedy.

We don’t really know. Kratom contains about 25 different alkaloids. There has not been real in depth research about what each and every of these alkaloids do or possibly can do to the human body and mind.

We can surely assume that each and every of these alkaloids do have a certain “stand alone” effect. We do know that there are great variations in the proportions of these alkaloids to each other varying to the specific Kratom samples used for this kind of research, and we can furthermore assume that all these alkaloids found in kratom do interact with each other.

This means: the physiological activity triggered by Kratom alkaloids in the human body is extremely complicated and if somebody could explain this he would be a sure candidate for the Nobel prize. But until now, nobody can, and we can’t either.

We do know very well however what all those people including ourselves report about how they felt after using Kratom. Depending on the individuals, the doses and the Kratom variety we can reliably observe and describe the following effects:

1. Stimulating
Practically all Kratom users of all Kratom varieties will agree that in small doses it is distantly comparable to the effects of a real big cup of coffee. Kratom makes you wide-awake and lets you stay wide awake for a period from let us say an hour to a whole 24-hour day. That is, if we may comment, quite a while.

2. Euphorizing
Also practically all Kratom users of all Kratom varieties describe this effect. Kratom will brighten your mood no matter how dark it is. This seems to apply to almost all cases and situations, big or small. So if it is just one of those rather “blue” days, or if it is a real depression, or if it is one of those “really sucks” situations (no, I don’t want to clean the dishes) – with Kratom everything looks and feels kind of more pleasurable, and the time seems to fly by somehow quicker and more pleasant. (I take Kratom on those days when I have to scrub my front porch. 30 m of brown tiles, disgustingly boring. With Kratom it is just plain fun…)

3. Painkilling
On the painkilling effects of Kratom the reports are less equivocal. There is no doubt that Kratom in general is a powerful painkiller, but not necessarily one with the same effectiveness on each and everybody. It seems that quite many people do well with the painkillers they are used to and would not prefer Kratom for this purpose. There is a number of people though, and among those ones also a number with extremely severe pain as in final stages of cancer or with a trigeminal neuralgia, who swear that nothing helps them better than Kratom and that nothing brings quicker and longer lasting relief than Kratom. So for the painkilling effect we can reliably observe rather different effects depending on individuals as well as depending on different Kratom varieties or alkaloid concentrations in different Kratom preparations.

4. Sedating
Again we can notice different opinions on different Kratom products and preparations. In the case of the sedating effects we can also note that dosage plays a very important role. In general it can be confirmed that at higher dosages most Kratom varieties seem to have rather sedating effects on most individuals. We do not know however whether these sedating effects of Kratom are a result of the psychotropic effects of the alkaloids on individual minds or if the alkaloids in fact also trigger certain body functions in the way that for example opiates do.

Difficult to say – there are lots of different Kratom products on the market than contain different amounts of different alkaloids and again trigger different reactions among different users. As a golden rule one should always stay on the safe and responsible side and start with a real low dosage – in the case of Kratom that would be about one gram. With one gram everybody is completely safe. Take one gram, wait one hour, and if not enough is happening, take the next gram of Kratom. It will not need more than a few trials and you will know very well how much you need to take from which product to achieve the effects desired by you.