Kratom

[Narcis]

Any is using Kratom and find relief?. At the beginning of using Kratom at the same time you take Pramipexol or Gabapentin?

Thanks

[march1044]

I just use kratom, and I've used it for three years. If you go to this site bb.rls.org, which is another RLS discussion board, and search for kratom and for any other drug you are taking, I think you'll find some people who are taking them together.

[Narcis in reply to march1044]

Thanks, very useful. You know if Kratom may be found in Spain easily?. I'm just in USA for a while and I'll will try to find Kratom. When I return to Spain I'll will search for the possibility to buy in my country.

[march1044 in reply to Narcis]

I think kratom is legal in Spain. it's best, I think, to order it from the internet. I go to Velvet Soul for mine velvetsoulnaturals.com/

Find it by putting a kind of kratom into the search box. I use Red Vein Borneo. It may not come up if you just search for "kratom" since it is illegal in some places. It is cheaper on other sites--you can do an internet search--but I'm fussy and like the kind I get from Velvet Soul.

Good luck to you!

[Joolsg]

I've heard it's wonderful for RLS and got very excited. Then found out it was made illegal in the UK in May of this year under the legal highs ACT. Very sad. Hope you find it is legal where you are.

[jimmcar in reply to Joolsg]

Don't give up. I had mine imported into Costa Rica with no problem at all. The exporter labeled it "Green Tea." Or have it shipped to a friend in europe or the US and have them repackage and send it on to you.

Or, my favorite, grow your own in a greenhouse! You can buy the trees from the US and have them shipped to you in the UK as something else.

[Narcis]

I find several sites in Netherlands where you can buy Kratom. They send to you very fast and as a textile

[jimmcar]

I am in Costa Rica and it is hard to find kratom. But I finally got my hands on some. It is not the ideal strain, I could only find a combination of the green and red types. So, it would normally be considered somewhat stimulating. But I had a good nights sleep!

I have had RLS for over 20 years and it has been getting worse. I normally take a combination of Sinemet, Deprenyl and mucuna powder. If I don't take any one of those, I will definitely have a terrible, painful night.

So it was with some trepidation that I went to bed. I made a cup of tea with two heaping tablespoons of the powdered leaf. I lay in bed, feeling a weird sensation in my legs - namely, nothing! I drifted off to sleep and woke up about two hours later with mild RLS. So I ate the leaves which I had left in the bottom of my teacup. The tea and the leaves are bitter but not terribly so. Sipping the tea with lemon, ginger and honey reminded me of the pleasant bitterness of coffee. Even chewing the leaves at 2 AM was not so bad.

After chewing the leaves, I went back to sleep and slept well until 5:30 AM. So, about 7 solid hours of sleep. Normally, I'll sleep until 8:30 AM and not feel as refreshed as I do right now.

I just wanted to share the good news.

[involuntarydancer in reply to jimmcar]

So pleased to read of the relief you got. Kratom is very topical on here at the moment. Love your description of the sensation in your legs 'namely nothing'.

It is possible that Sinemet is the culprit for your worsening symptoms. Although brilliant for treating the condition initially it can start to effectively feed the condition in a process known as augmentation. So far as I'm aware mucuna pruriens works on the same receptors so could potentially also be contributing to the worsening condition.

I don't know anything about deprenyl. It is worth checking a list of prescription and otc meds that cause worsening rls to ensure you are not inadvertently taking something that is exacerbating the condition.

There is another category of drugs for rls, namely the anticonvulsants: pregabalin, gabapentin and horizant (a slow release version of gabapentin which is available in the US - I'm not sure about Costa Rica). They are not perfect but it might be worth substituting them for the sinemet and mucuna pruriens at least for a while. Coming off the sinemet might be very hard though and your symptoms could get a lot worse for a while.

It is also worth ensuring that your iron levels are high by getting a serum ferritin test from your gp. Latest thinking in the US (where some of the best experts are located) is that serum ferritin should be over 100.

[jimmcar in reply to involuntarydancer]

Thanks for that informative reply.

I have always know that it is possible to build a tolerance for Sinemet and so have been careful not to overuse it. Which has meant many a sleepless night. But I never considered the possibility of augmentation. That is really worth considering.

Mucuna has been a godsend - for one thing I can grow it here in CR and that gives me a sense of power. Being able to grow your own is great! In addition, mucuna is, in effect, a full spectrum drug - that is, it contains a wide range of ingredients besides the Levadopa. After a month or so of substituting a teaspoon of mucuna for most of my Sinemet, I felt much better overall, slept better and had a more normal libido.

In fact, before I tried kratom, my sleep was better than it had been for years, mostly because of the mucuna and also, I believe, because of the Deprenyl.

All that being said, I'm going to take your advice but instead of using the anti-convulsants, (have you heard any of the terrible withdrawal stories associated with gabapentin?) I'll try the kratom. After all, I can grow that also here in Costa Rica!

[dugoutski in reply to jimmcar]

Hi there, I am in Costa Rica and I am looking for some live kratom cuttings for giving to a friend that has RLS. He has used up all of the supply I brought him and he says he hasn't slept so well in ages. He has a small farm and I think it would be great if he could grow his own. Is the kratom that you found in CR locally grown and can you direct me to the farmer? It's probably a long shot but I figured it would be worth asking. Thanks in advance.

[jimmcar in reply to dugoutski]

I ordered 1/2 kilo of kratom leaves, had them sent to a Jetbox address in Miami, (they are a mail forwarding service for CR,) and they are in CR now. I just have to pick them up. Easy.

Now, I totally understand the urge to grow your own. I don't know if there are any in CR. If there are, I don't know where.

I sympathize with your friend. So, here's what I did.

I ordered a couple of trees. I had them sent to a (very good) friend in California. He is going to wash all the soil off the roots, wrap them in wet paper towel, put them in a Ziplock baggy, squish them between a bunch of paper and send them in a UPS Express envelope.

The trees are about 10 inches high, including the roots.

They cost about $65 each, it is $65 to send the envelope. takes three days to get to my town, San Isidro. By the way, where is your friend located?

First, they may not make it past customs. Second, they may not survive the rough treatment. Third, they may not survive once they are in CR. But I figure the payoff is worth the gamble.

Anyway I can try and bring them back with me when I take my next trip to the US.

If he wants to get in touch with me directly, send him my email address, (email address deleted for your own security) - Kaarina (volunteer) There is a PM facility entitled Chat.

[dugoutski in reply to jimmcar]

Thank you for the info and advice. My friend lives in Quepos, not so far from you. I'll be around here for another month so maybe I will also try to get some cuttings sent here. I am seriously concerned for the future of this important medicine now that the FDA has labeled it an opioid. The irony is that opioids by definition are synthetically produced, naturally derived compounds from the opium poppy are called opiates, not opioids. So by definition Kratom is neither an opioid nor an opiate. Furthermore the rest of the so called science that the FDA has based it's decision on is also terribly flawed and deceptive. Anyway, it would be great to get some growing here in CR for those who need it.

[jimmcar in reply to dugoutski]

I don{t know if you can get cuttings or not, I've only seen trees for sale. But cuttings could work, many trees in the tropics grow from cuttings.

The FDA, so closely allied with the pharmaceutical industry is probably aghast at the idea of yet another powerful medicine (along with cannabis) which people can actually grow themselves. I'm really looking forward to growing it here.

[involuntarydancer]

So amazing to think of you growing these plants. Costa Rica sounds fantastic. I grew my own cannabis last year (purely to treat my rls) so that I could control strain and what I was taking but I have to grow it indoors which leads to all sorts of problems with pests and nutrition etc (not to mention the illegality).

I hope that the fact that you have been taking sinemet intermittently will help with the withdrawal process.

Over the past few years I have, courtesy of my rls, had the experience of withdrawing from a number of drugs including oxycontin, which is supposed to be very hard and by far the worst was the dopamine agonist - in my case pramipexole - though in fairness I had been on it for a long time and ultimately at quite a high dose. I have no doubt that in due course I will be adding pregabalin withdrawals to the list of others I can comment on but for now I am hoping that it will enable me to live something approaching a normal life for a couple of years.

It is difficult to achieve a good balance between achieving a passable living in the present and making provision for future misery. I recently read a quote encouraging the 'eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die' approach which referenced all those women (sexual stereo-typing alive and well) on the titanic who waived the desert trolley away.

[jimmcar]

Pretty amazing to hear of your conscecutive withdrawal experiences. That is tough!

My technique is to take fairly regular drug vacations from Sinemet, which is what works for me. But I used to have many bad nights of sleep using it because I would not up the dosage. I even tried a raw food diet and that worked for a couple of years. But what really helped is that I was able lower my dosage and lengthen the amount of time that it would work for me.

I have found something called Deprynl is a great help. Also, mucuna pruriens, the bean. It has a lot of L-Dopa in it and once I started taking that, I reduce my Sinemet from 1 pill to 1/4. And the mucuna has other things in it that improve your libido, your general energy and attitude.

I also use marijuana edibles to sleep. I love it so I try and keep it to a minimum, only when I haven't slept well for a few days in a row.

I am totally in accord with the philosopy of "eat your dessert before dinner because who knows if you will survive that long."

I've had the grasshopper philosophy my entire life and it has worked out for me, luckily enough.

[involuntarydancer in reply to jimmcar]

I have tried mucuna pruriens extract but it didn't do much for my rls. A number of people on here have tried the extract but it sounds as thought the bean is much more effective. Would like something that improved general energy and libido but am prepared to settle for a few hours peaceful sleep which I am getting on my current system of pregabalin and kratom.

Incidentally find exactly the same as you regarding the edible cannabis; I like it a little too much, so try to ration it to every few nights. I also notice that I have an unpleasant mood reduction with it if I take it too regularly - feel very morose and doom-laden. It's a pity because I definitely sleep better when I take it.

[jimmcar in reply to involuntarydancer]

I am able to grow the bean on my farm. It is quite easy to grow. I've never tried the extract. The bean itself is a full spectrum medicine, with many different active compounds. I find that it is way, way better than taking the pure L-Dopa in Sinemet.

Marijuana is very interesting. I was able to get off Sinemet completely for abou 6 months while using marijuana. But after a while i found that i needed more and more to get the same effect. So I stopped cold turkey and went back to Sinemet.

It was very difficult. Even when i tried double the dosage i used before i tried the cannabis, i had a terrible nights sleep. But after a month, things went back to normal.

I figure it took that long for my neuro-transmitters to get back to normal and erase the growing dependency on marijuana that I had unwittingly triggered.

Now i use it as a drug vacation and insurance when sleep is difficult.