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hoodoo

Dangerous Synergy, Kratom+Mao I ?

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Nope, I'm not talking about the Chinese thug with the little red book, this is the Mao Inhibitor that messes with things in your brain and stomach. I live not in Oz but elsewhere in Asia where Mitragyna speciosa is still legal, which means somewhere outside of Australia, Malaysia and Thailand and as far as I know tossing extracts of plants out the window to greedy Ravens is legal here.

An extracted yellow crud derived from a paste made by powdering dried Kratom leaf into a jar full of pharmacy quality Hydrogen Peroxide, letting it steep for half a day, then pouring the strained tea off and allowing it to dry as much as possible. The Hydrogen peroxide expands when combined with the powdered plant matter so I had to periodically open the jar to let out gas as the lid was obviously under expanding pressure as fluid was seen leaking about the lid.

Next two 0 sized gel caps were used to scoop up the yellow residue and swallowed by one of many ubiquitos, greedy, light-headed, giant, pointy-beaked, black crows seen picking through the garbage. A small amount of Mao inhibitor was also tossed near the old bird which it swallowed soon afterward and KABOOM! burst was seen, feathers falling all about! The synergy was indeed apparently profound as I had suspected it might be. The bird flew dangerously higher than usual with no regard to it's lack of feathers and never the less took unusually long hours to land.

Indoles as tryptamines, double-crossed with Mao inhibitors result in the famously powerful concoctions of Ayahuaska as everyone knows, but who guessed the contents of Mitragyna speciosa would also be amplified by Mono Oxidase Inhibitors?

MAO Inhibitors are contraindicated with codeine and other opiates and what precise chemistry is evoked from their combination I truly do not know but I agree that it might be dangerous to mix the two.

Only the tiniest amount of MAO inhibiting substance was used in conjunction with the Mitragyna speciosa extracts, with the assumption that the two substances might synergize powerfully, and even potentially dangerously. Next it will be up to others to take the experiment further but I have a feeling this adaptation is here to stay.

It might be more prudent to test this hypothesis with the inhalation of combusted caapi leaves or smoking some other MAO Inhibiting substances, as that would allow a quicker recovery if anything goes wrong. Be safe old crows!

[ 24. July 2005, 06:15: Message edited by: hoodoo ]

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Ive often wondered about the effects of MAO-I's on opiates because Im am on a daily dose of 145mg's of methadone.

I was thinking about when I take a trip to the Amazon and take an Ayahuasca ceremony will I need to make sure I have substantly less Cappi than usual?

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hoodoo - very interesting. A few years ago I did a lot of experimentation with MAOIs and found only serotonergic drugs to be affected eg MDMA, tryptamines, iboga etc. Iboga was only double in potency by a full MAO inhibition, so not really a grand degree of synergy. Yohimbe however also had a strong synergy which resulted in my worst drug epxerience EVER. Since then I've been in two minds about complex indoles and their MAOI synergy.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the yohimbe, iboga, and now kratom synergy may not be with the alkaloids that have been tested and assumed to be theactives. It may well be that yohimbine and mitragynine have no MAOI synergy, but that other minor alkaloids provide for this.

Complex indoles are not mono amines, so MAO does not attack them. The mechanism of potentiation might more likely be via building up levels of biogenic amines which were originally triggered by these complex indoles. This would explain why serotonin depleted individuals do not get much of a MAOI synergy with iboga at all, because there is not enough serotonin in the system for the MAOI to actually make a difference. Given that common MAOIs like harmala and caapi do not affect dopamine and adrenaline to any significant degree I am a little puzzled about the synergistic effects with some complex indoles - especially in regards to kratom. Kratom does not strike me as a very serotonergic drug.

Could you please give more detail on the amount and type of MAO inhibitor used? Also what proportion of inhibition you would guess this would have caused (eg was it a quarter/half of what you would need to make DMT active for 4 hours)?

But most importantly can you definie the quality of the effect more please. Kratom has a whole range of effects at various dosages, ranging from stimulant at low dose to narcotic at high dose. I am intrigued whether a low kratom dose on full MAO inhibition would produce stronger low dose effects (ie longer and stronger stimulation) or rather high dose effects (eg sedation, nausea).

Furthermore, did the effect change at all from the usual kratom effects? Kratom is very nonvisual and really not at all mind expanding. Did the MAOI introduce any kind of visual aspect to it? The reason I am asking is because the complex indoles in kratom would me synthesised from tryptamine(s) an kratom may (at some or all stages in the year) contain certain tryptamines that would be activated by ingesting a MAOI.

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Well, lets see...........details, hmmmmm.

I took some powdered Mitragyna speciosa leaves from a batch that I had consumed quite a few times prior and they are the strongest batch I have had. Typically, 7 to ten grams is way plenty enough. I do not like the taste of kratom tea one bit and I think tasting it starts up the gag reflex, which then taints my memory for hours afterward, so I prefer to dry the tea down slowly in a pyrex or teflon coated pan, followed by scraping up the residue. This time (and a few other times I have experimented, I instead used hot water or hot water and vinegar (that is all I have around here those days, so I figured why not try it every way I can think of?) (Well I have some no alcohol beer too, but I ain't gonna steep Kratom in that then drink it). So I bought some hydrogen peroxide from a pharmacy and put ten grams of finely powdered herb into a jar covering the kratom powder. I am no wizard chemist by any means so it will do you noone any good to ask me why I used hydrogen peroxide. I can only say that I hoped it might alter the chemicals in the powdered plant matter. After half a day of steeping I pour the tea through a neckerchief and squeeze the remaining liquid out which is yellow, and dry that in a glass pan as I said. The residue is soft yellowish and slightly gooey, different from using just water or water and vinegar, so is easily scraped up off of pyrex glass. The residue from water or water/vinegar is hard as a rock and hard to scrape up without breaking or dulling the scraper or even chipping off some teflon which might add unnecessarily to the alkaloid content!

For a MAO Inhibitor I have a bunch around here such as caapi shredded, tribulus terrestris to make me a real man, horny goat weed to make me a stud, passion flower for no good reason, procaine, and selegiline as antidepressants. I used the latter, but knowing exactly what it does to me, which I have decided over time, is that it makes me feeling crappy, so I only take it once a year, just to check and have that crappy feeling reaffirmed, sort of like cannabis which I also get no enjoyment from anymore. Never the less, I check to make sure sometimes.

So the 5 milligram selegiline pills inhibit mao b and remarkably set off any phenethylamine and lots of cactus teas, including oddly enough one containing a steroid, cactus grandiflorus, but that is another topic. So I took just about a third of a selegiline pill which is a tiny amount of substance, and swallowed it after I consumed the yellow residue from roughly ten grams of good kratom, which I had done each evening for a week, so I knew it was a safe amount to reach a pleasurable state of mind. I laid down after I took the selegiline and within an hour I felt greater effects than I expected from such a small amount of selegiline. I then worried a little as I had read that mao Inhibitors are contraindicated with opiates and I also have experienced what mao inhibitors do to tryptamines like mimosa root bark (three and a half years prior, phew! that combination aided in my goal to cease my incessant daily alcohol consumption, which was thoroughly ceased indeed, after the horrendous yet wonderful experience from the ayahuaska. So I could not find any info on anyone combining a mao inhibitor with kratom which is known to contain indoles and a whole bunch of other wird chemicals and stuff, so anything was possible I figured. I felt the effects come on somewhat reminiscent of a very strong kratom experience I had a year and a half ago with 20 grams of what was supposed to be a weak Kratom strain, the effects were thoroughly bogus and uncomfortable, dizzying, nauseating and lasted 3 hours that time. This time, I thought I felt a hint that that old regrettable lesson might recur so I stayed on the floor looking up so as not to increase nausea or dizziness. It never did get that bad, my worries were unfounded. I actually enjoyed it although there was a bit of discomfort, tension in the head, a bloated gut, but coupled with warm sensations which swirled through my legs, a feeling I can sometimes get from opiates when they are prescribed for pain. Thsese were more apparent than what the kratom usually does on it's own and a Mao I does not do that in the slightest. The warm swirls continued for a long time, eventually I stood up well within an hour and I was not as nauseated as I feared and I actually enjoyed the experience, although I did feel a bit like being hypoxic, like when you stand up quickly and get dizzy. There were no especially significant visual aspects like ayahuaska what so ever. Instead, the mao inhibitor seemed mostly to multiply typical kratom's effects, and I am not going to try to say exactly if it was 1/3 more or double or triple the normal strength of ten grams because I am not sure. I find such experiences usually do not include the guy who is typing right now as a different mindstate is like a different person, this typist gets set aside and a new man steps into his place, and that new guy gets to take over and ride in my head. The two persona somewhat overlap, but not 100 per cent, so they do not trust each other! What I will say for sure, is that the silegiline alone and the kratom alone are subjectively different from the effect of kratom combined with under two milligrams of selegiline. I also state that I am a light head compared to most people, in geneneral, I find Shulgins weightings of doses to suit me just fine, so hard headed folks will certainly need more MAOI than me.

Torsten, I find your comment interesting about people who have shortages of serotonin having little effect from mao inhibitors to be interesting. In my case, after two subjectively powerful ayahuaska experiences, the second one being the last time I have embarked on any powerful psychoative experience (and the last I want to have) and that was three and a half years ago. Afterward, as I noted, I did indeed give up my alcohol addiction as planned, but unfortuantately I experienced fairly deep depression which may have been directly from a deficit caused by the mao inhibitor in the ayahuaska or it may have been from the cessation of the inebriating booze masking an underlying depression. I went on a SSRI afterward for a time, until I felt the depression had subsided. I do not know if I am serotonin deficient, but it would be my guess that I am. Therefore, the maoi may well be boosting the effect of one of the many other chemcials in Kratom, as the alkaloid and other chemical constituents re plenty complicated. Furthermore, the plant seems to vary seasonally, regionally, diurnally, and by subspecies, so making a controlled study will be a challenge. In the mean time, I bet that smoking some caapi, esphand extract or horny goat weed leaves in conjunction with kratom leaves might make at safe and interesting cigarette where legal. I will also add that uniquely, the maoi "esphand" make me feel like shit, like I have a cloudy mind combined with symptoms of feeling like I am on the verge of catching a cold. I felt a hint of that feeling with the selegiline/kratom combo, and that is what made me wary at first, although it never did get so bad as to ruin the good aspects of the effects.

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I am glad I asked for more detail. There is some really important stuff here. Most important of all is the fact that this experience was with a MAO-b inhibitor, rather than the MAO-a inhibitors most of us are used to.

so I prefer to dry the tea down slowly in a pyrex or teflon coated pan, followed by scraping up the residue.

I think they call them 'biak balls'. It's one of the traditional preparation methods.

So I bought some hydrogen peroxide from a pharmacy and put ten grams of finely powdered herb into a jar covering the kratom powder. .....I pour the tea through a neckerchief and squeeze the remaining liquid out which is yellow, and dry that in a glass pan as I said.

A big word of caution here. I have experimented with peroxide combinations with kratom and have foudn that the material does NOT change. I've used up to 50% w/v and even under heat without any effect. However, what can happen is that the combination of powder and excess oxygen becomes explosive when heated. Just before it reaches a putty stage it selfignites in a violent puff of smoke. Even a tablespoon of powder would be enough to leave your face seriously scared and possibly cause blindness from the violent flash it creates. It may also start a housefire as the ash is catapulted against the ceiling and spreads through the whole room while still burning.

You have been warned!!!

So the 5 milligram selegiline pills inhibit mao b and remarkably set off any phenethylamine and lots of cactus teas

I've spent the last 10 years telling people about just how safe MAO inhibitors really are as long as certain drugs are avoided and that most of the tirades of warnings are simply irrelevant crap. But this applies to MAO-a inhibitors only. These include caapi, harmala and aurorix - the ones commonly used for ayahuasca. The safety precautions are in fact a relic of the time when only MAO-b inhibitors were available, so it is wise to remember that all those food and drug warnings *DO* in fact apply to things like selegiline.

Selegiline will amplify effects such as stimulation and pressor effect and they are NOT recommended for combinations with cacti etc

There were no especially significant visual aspects like ayahuaska what so ever.

Knowing that it was a MAO-b inhibitor one would not expect such visuals anyway.

Torsten, I find your comment interesting about people who have shortages of serotonin having little effect from mao inhibitors to be interesting.

Actually, I did not make this sufficiently clear I think. People with low serotonin have reduced visuals from most serotonergic drugs. Ibogaine in great part relies on its visual effects for healing, so people with low serotonin sadly get less out of ibogaine than those with high serotonin. This effect is pronounced when combining with a MAOI. I wasn't actually saying that low serotonin individuals get less out of the MAOI, but rather that they get less out of the apparent synergy of MAOI and ibogaine.

I experienced fairly deep depression which may have been directly from a deficit caused by the mao inhibitor in the ayahuaska or it may have been from the cessation of the inebriating booze masking an underlying depression.

Ayahuasca use actually increases serotonin levels and response. However, the experience can be so challenging that it may well cause a drop in serotonin because of a lack of integration. Which is why repeated doses are best.

It would seem to me that the depressions was either masked by your alcohol addiction or simply resulted from the stresses caused by the cessation of alcohol consumption.

In the mean time, I bet that smoking some caapi, esphand extract or horny goat weed leaves in conjunction with kratom leaves might make at safe and interesting cigarette where legal.

I wold not be so sure. MAO-a is a very different beast to MAO-b. You can take a vast array of things on MAO-a without any side effects (and hence without any synergy).

I will also add that uniquely, the maoi "esphand" make me feel like shit

Yeah, I hate that foggy feeling from Peganum harmala too. Gaia bless the caapi vine You will find this a lot more pleasant. In fact, even though I hate harmala, I thoroughly enjoy caapi even just on it's own.

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interesting about the seritonin. i always figured i had heaps of seritonin cos im always happy and when coming down i stay bright and bubble. but maybe i dont, foaf had 400mg of mescaline and no visuals, no ego shattering experience, a friend told me less then 500mg isnt worth it and i guess he is right. no wonder indians have so much :)

whilst extracting kratom foaf obtained some product that didnt glow under uv light, snorting a small amount had him urinating 5 times per hour, 500ml+ clear urine each time, he started getting very light headed :)

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Thanks for the warning about hydrogen peroxide. None of mine blew up yet.

The tea when dried is weird as hell, not like a normal tea-tar, it is airy yet firm, sort of like foam rubber, which collapses if your press it. The way it puffs up reminds me a little of popcorn, which is mysterious as to how it puffs and then instantly firms.

Many years ago I drank some chicalote extract and afterward caapi extract and I had the deepest, wildest dreams in ages, something that I did not think was accountable only to the chicalote, instead I beleive it was potentiated very much by the MAO Inh in the caapi extract.

Regarding other after effects from my most recent ayahuaska experience 3 1/2 years ago, I had a major drop in libido which began the day afterward, and as I mentioned prior depression also set in the day afterward. I doubt alcohol was the cause of both changes, although alcohol is said to boost dopamine levels although I do not know why that would be pertinent. Libido loss after taking ayahuasca was also mentioned by another person at ayahuasca.com at about the same time that I experimented. At that time he had his testosterone levels checked and they were abnormally low. I can not confirm that about me though, since I never had any blood tested, wish I had.

Selegiline is sometimes prescribed to boost low sexual interest and although rare it is even known to cause spontaneous erections in some unfortunates, which makes me wonder about the ways, if any, that mao inhibition, serotonin, maybe dopamine are linked. I have no answers but I surmise there is a connection.

I would like to second the request for anyone who has any information on the effect of MAOI on opiate based analgesics, as I noted the two are contraindicated, I would guess some potentiation occurs that in some cicumstance could cause death from respiatory failure. Lesser amounts of Maoi might on the other hand boost the effect of kratom. I will check it out sometime with the mao A in aurorix or caapi both of which are laying around here somewhere.

On another note, I am glad to hear that someone else has terrible effects from esphand as I see it is very often the maoi of choice in many westerners first time ayahuasca brews and maybe this will warn someone away from it.

I recall that one of the early western pioneers studying ayahuasca in the Amazon region actually went around giving viable seeds of peganum harmala to the indigenous tribes, he told them they could have a second maoi source on hand if they grew the seeds. Until Torsten mentioned it, I guessed that the negative effects from esphand (which mimic a cold virus in me), were rare.

Since ayahuasca is well known to cause serious temporary side effects such as nausea and discomfort, I would imagine most people are forwarned before they drink the brew. Yet some people may have unnecesarily endured additional negative effects if they react to peg harmala like I do. In summary, if they had instead enjoyed the comparatively smooth and warm effects of Banisteriopsis caapi, they may have had a far richer, cleaner, smoother ayahusca experience, utilizing the experience of the amazonians .

[ 26. July 2005, 13:52: Message edited by: hoodoo ]

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Is there a post here or somewhere that anyone can lead me to that details the best way to extract the actives in Kratom? Water and acid? What about hexane or ethanol, methanol? I do not know how to aquire chloroform if that is one of the better solvents.

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there are a few post here that deal with extracting from kratom and a few at the nook. great stuff to work with. i wont go into it as ive typed all ive noted at the nook and here.

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Originally posted by hoodoo:

The tea when dried is weird as hell, not like a normal tea-tar, it is airy yet firm, sort of like foam rubber, which collapses if your press it.

If you make it with water instead of hydrogen peroxide it won't be foamy

Regarding other after effects from my most recent ayahuaska experience 3 1/2 years ago, I had a major drop in libido which began the day afterward, and as I mentioned prior depression also set in the day afterward.

A drop in libido after ayahuasca is normal (but not essential) as libido is an expression of healthy/excessive dopamine levels, but serotonin is the antagonist of dopamine. So by increasing serotonin via ayahuasca you will generlaly decrease dopamine and hence decrease libido.

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Thanks. I am off to the nook.

-----------------------------------------------

Pacman made me gobble all these pills.

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quote:

serotonin is the antagonist of dopamine

Torsten, "antagonist" has a specific meaning and it's use in this sense is confusing.

Serotonin in some areas of the brain may produce some effects which are opposite in action to dopamine, and serotonergic overactivity may reduce dopamine release in some areas, but "antagonist" implies that it binds the same receptor and blocks access by dopamine, which is untrue.

 

quote:

The safety precautions are in fact a relic of the time when only MAO-b inhibitors were available, so it is wise to remember that all those food and drug warnings *DO* in fact apply to things like selegiline.

 


Actually, the old MAOIs were non-selective A/B inhibitors.

Also, I believe that b-selective inhibitors have been shown to be safe, and it is only when both enzymes are inhibited that the "cheese reaction" is likely to occur, as most substrates can be metabolized by either isozyme, despite a greater affinity for one or the other.

Regarding the unpleasant side-effects of harmala:

Is their pharmacological basis known?

Are any isoquinolines known to possess properties which would explain them?

[ 30. July 2005, 07:12: Message edited by: Tryptameanie ]

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Originally posted by Tryptameanie:

"antagonist" has a specific meaning and it's use in this sense is confusing.

Yep, I agree. Me bad!

I believe that b-selective inhibitors have been shown to be safe

Safe with what? My safety point wasn't just about tyramine, but also that all non-serotonergic drugs I tried were pretty much unaffected by MAO-a inhibitors. Are Mao-b inhibitors safe with tyramine? what about with speed and other stimulants? how about serotonergics like MDMA?

and it is only when both enzymes are inhibited that the "cheese reaction" is likely to occur

The cheese reaction is basically a build up of tyramine, so does this mean that tyramine can be metabolised by MAO-a or MAO-b?

Regarding the unpleasant side-effects of harmala:

Is their pharmacological basis known?

Are any isoquinolines known to possess properties which would explain them?

Most people don't get any side effects from harmala, so this is difficult to test. I really have no idea what is causing the yucky feeling. I find it most pronounced in combo with shrooms - if that is any help.

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