Experiences - First time Kava Kava use

[cyberslick18]

So Swim enjoys euphoria, and a sense of well being. SWIM has a lot of subtle anxiety in his life (he runs his own business, and supports his parents almost completely, and has a fair amount of responsibility).

SWIM really likes the high brought on by codeine, but very rarely takes more than 5-10 mg of the stuff, he doesn't like to "omg heroin nod", but he likes the pressure of life lifted for a bit.

He has also enjoyed poppy tea, very rarely enjoys cocaine, and occasionally puffs some marijuana.

He stumbled on Kava Kava on his effort to get better sleep, and he learned that some users had reported "subtle, codeine like euphoria", and he wanted to give it a shot.

So he looked around, and didn't find a whole lot in terms of information, so he googled around and picked up a 1lb bag of powdered root from an apparently reliable vendor.

He took 2.5 rounded teaspoons, and mixed them with 300(ish) ML of 2% fat milk.

He blended them for 5 minutes or so, and then added a packet of chocolate powder (hot cocoa), then strained it through a mesh bag supplied with the kava. It didn't strain very quickly, he had to squeeze a fair bit to get it all through.

He then put the mixture in the freezer for maybe 10 minutes, just to let it settle and cool off a bit from the blender.

He then drank approximately half of the remaining liquid, in a few big gulps. It wasn't horrifying, but it seemed exceptionally salty aftertaste.

He'll be keeping a detailed log.

0:00 Imbibed half of the mixture - Pretty gross, seemed very salty aftertaste. Noticed the back portion of his throat went fairly numb, but not for more than 10 minutes.

0:20 Noticing a fairly sharp headache coming on. Can't tell if its related or random, taking some motrin to help. Starting to notice his body is a little heavier, a little more relaxed, EXTREMELY small sense of well being seems to be coming around, at this point it could easily be placebo. Still has half of mixture remaining

0:35 He is taking the rest of the mixture right now. Very salty, and much harder to get down the second time. Chased it with the orange juice, and that helped immensely, will probably just mix it with orange juice next time. Slight stomach discomfort. Very odd feeling, not worried about much, but also not feeling "good". Will give it some time.

0:40 Noticing it's harder to focus on reading and websites in general than it usually is. Could be placebo, although it doesn't feel like it.

0:50 Seem to be clearing up a bit, can focus a little more, and the good feelings come in tiny waves. Wouldn't call it euphoria by any means, but its not bad. Not feeling 100% though, almost a little jittery, and really hoping to level out soon.

1:00 The good feelings seem to come in and out. No codeine like euphoria though. SWIM could probably fall asleep easily if he tried. Mild stomach discomfort, and a general sense of discomfort. A little mentally cloudy. Swim is actually finding these waves rather annoying. They come in, and he gets excited, then they rush out, leaving him annoyed and feeling down. Swim is normally a pretty reliable person with no real mood swings. This seems to be unique to Kava Kava thus far.

1:20 Nothing seems to be changing much. Still annoying to focus, getting progressively more tired, positive effects don't seem to really be worth the negatives. Stomach issues seem to come and go, but have not been anything more than mild so far.

1:40 Getting a little bit dizzy, good feelings aren't really coming anymore. This experiment has been more annoying than anything. SWIM feels as though too much was taken, even though from his general reading this was a very average dose to begin with. He did have high expectations, and thats probably where he went wrong.

**UPDATE**

8:00(or so), tried smoking some Marijuana, a very small amount. Was feeling decent at the time, and this small hit immediately brought back all of the negative feelings associated with Kava Kava, and they lasted another hour or so, before SWIM tried to sleep. Falling asleep wasn't too bad, but getting up the next morning was pretty damn hard.

Dreams were more lucid than normal, with SWIM being able to recall most of them in pretty good detail, but that could also be attributed to SWIMs nightly use of melatonin.


There is nothing subtle about this, at least to SWIM. There is also very little enjoyable about this experience. One would have to be VERY anxious, for this to be an enjoyable alternative, at least for the present set of effects occurring to SWIM.

SWIM will update tomorrow to let everyone know how sleep was, dreaming was, if there is any hangover, and if anything changed in the immediate aftermath of taking the initial dose.

Thanks for reading!

[ScorpioSunshine]

If Swim feels like giving it another shot, swiy may have better luck the second time around. Kava is said to have a reverse tolerance effect , so swiy may have better effects the next day.

Kava is also very unique, very subtle, and expecting it to perform along the same lines as other substances is why a lot of people are disappointed. Swim thinks swiy realizes that :=)

Swim didn't have too much success with Kava powder (root), and she is pretty sure she had some good powder. But, swim had great success with kavalactone paste.

Swim has also felt the jittery effects and found them slightly unpleasant and strange, almost hard to describe (from the root powder).

Swim has a lot of unused kava powder, and ordered a new batch from a different vendor just to see if maybe her kava wasn't as good as she thought.

But like swim said .... kava powder was "meh", take it or leave it for swim ...if swim is remembering her story correctly, she was kind of lethargic but not totally "ahhh" relaxed. However, the kavalactone paste was very pleasant, albeit very mild, and swim plans to purchase more.

On a side note...swim knows taste is subjective to some degree, but swim is surprised to hear kava being described as salty. Swim never found that to be the case ... "earthy" <dirt like to a degree, lol> yes, but salty? Swim is curious if others have tasted this.

Anyway .... thanks for sharing!! :=)

[cyberslick18]

Earthy is a good description, but I would say that the "after" taste was fairly salty in my opinion.

Swim also ordered pill with the powdered root, and MAY try those in the future, but from reading around the forum the suggested amount can be anywhere from 20-50 pills to get a good effect. Not something SWIM is really excited to try.

Looks like SWIM will be investing in some Kratom, but was really hoping the kava kava would give him the effects he was looking for.