Kratom Duration, Addiction, and Treatment Options
Kratom, the common name for Mitragyna speciosa, is an herb in the coffee family that has long been used in parts of Southeast Asia as a painkiller or mood lifter. As kratom has become popularized in America, it has led to substance abuse. Because of kratom’s pain-killing effects, people take kratom to experience euphoria or a feeling of sedation. Too much kratom can be dangerous for a person’s system and make a user incredibly sick. If someone uses kratom for too long or too often, it can also lead to psychological and physiological dependence.
You may be wondering, “how long does kratom stay in your system?” Additionally, if you or your loved one are struggling with kratom abuse, you may wonder about options for kratom treatment in your state. Treatment centers are becoming more and more familiar with kratom as a drug and its effects on the body, including Zinnia Health treatment facilities. These facilities are located across the nation, offering individualized treatment.
How Is Kratom Detected on Drug Tests?
In most states in the United States, kratom is legal. Thus, it is not often that drug tests include kratom. If you have to take a drug test for kratom, you may be wondering how the drug is detected.
Kratom would only show up on a 10-panel drug test, or a more involved test than the typical 5-panel drug test.
If you are going to be taking a test that will detect whether there is kratom in your system, and you are worried about what the results are going to be, this is how a drug test might detect kratom in your system if you have consumed it recently:
- Kratom will show up in urine or blood during a drug test up to or around seven days after usage. While the half-life of kratom is not exactly known and can vary based on the type of kratom you took and the way you consumed it, there is a good chance kratom can be detected in both drug and urine tests for at least a week.
- Kratom will not usually show up on hair follicle tests. This is not typically a means by which someone would be tested to see if they have used kratom recently.
What Affects How Long Kratom Stays in Your System?
The effects of a kratom drug test will be affected by the following:
- How you consumed the drug
- How much body fat you have
- Other drugs you have consumed during the same time frame
- Other food and drinks you may have consumed during the same time frame
- Your metabolic rate
- Your age
- How well your liver functions
- Other health problems you may have
- How much alcohol you consume
- Your body weight
- The dosage of the drug you took
How is Kratom Metabolized in the Body?
Kratom, like all drugs, is metabolized once you consume it. Kratom is metabolized in the liver, where it is broken into several different metabolites. These metabolites are the alkaloids or compounds that affect the brain and cause the “high” feeling that many people are chasing by consuming the drug.
Once the drug is metabolized, most kratom is excreted in the urine. Because kratom is metabolized in the liver, it can cause liver damage.
It may be particularly dangerous for people with low-functioning or injured livers to avoid kratom since the liver must work hard to break down the substance.
Once kratom is metabolized in the body and the drug begins to leave the body, you may begin experiencing feelings of withdrawal from kratom. While kratom withdrawal is not lethal, it can be incredibly uncomfortable and cause people to feel very sick. Often, people feel so sick from kratom withdrawal that they use it again, which creates a cycle of dependence.
What Are Common Kratom Withdrawal Symptoms?
If you are beginning to withdraw from kratom, you can expect to experience the following sensations:
- Restless legs or a “creepy-crawly” feeling in limbs, including arms.
- Temperature highs and lows—feeling very hot or very cold
- Agitation, anxiety, restlessness
- Body pains and aches are returning and worsening. Sometimes, these pains can feel like the flu or an injury
- Profuse sweating
- Extreme nausea. Nausea associated with kratom withdrawal can last for several days
- Loose stools or diarrhea. Kratom is well-known for causing constipation. A clear sign that a body is detoxing from the drug is that the stools become loose. This can be accompanied by stomach cramping and can last for several days. A loperamide-based anti-diarrheal medication is a good treatment for this withdrawal symptom because it can act on the same part of the brain that kratom acted on to harden the stool.
- A feeling of depression or hopelessness. Often, once people get past the acute phase of withdrawal and overcome the physical symptoms, they experience a long period of Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (or PAWS), which includes a long, severe, and unyielding depression. Luckily, however, with psychotherapy, lifestyle changes, and sometimes antidepressant medications, PAWS will lift within several weeks to months after quitting the drug.
How Long Does It Take for the Effects of Kratom to Wear Off?
Kratom can be consumed in a variety of forms. Some people choose to consume powdered kratom leaf, which can be mixed into a liquid or drunk as tea. Other people choose to take the powder inside of pre-measured capsules, which is a means of better keeping track of your kratom dosage. Others smoke kratom or chew fresh or dried leaves.
In small doses, kratom is known to have stimulating effects. In larger doses, kratom has sedating effects and can make a person very sleepy. In much larger doses, kratom can cause hallucinations—and the drug can make people very sick or depress the respiratory system.
Anyone who takes kratom for its stimulating, analgesic, or relaxation effects should be very careful about how much they consume because the effects can come on strongly and quickly, and they can have dangerous results.
The half-life of kratom is not very long, and once your high peaks, it will begin wearing off. People who don’t want the feeling of kratom to wear off will take it repeatedly, and this is a behavior that can lead not only to psychological dependence but also physical dependence.
If you are wondering, how long does it take kratom to leave your system? The answer is that it depends on the amount of kratom you’ve taken, your size, and what kind of kratom you consumed.
Typically, the feelings caused by a standard dose of kratom will start to wear off after three hours. Users of kratom report that the “peak” of their kratom high typically occurs around 1.5 hours after they consume the herb. However, users of kratom should know that the length of time that they can feel the effects is not the same as the length of time that kratom is in their body.
Some experts believe that it can take five or six half-lives of a drug for that drug to be eliminated from a person’s system. And since the half-life of kratom is believed to be about 24 hours, kratom may remain in a user’s body for nearly a week.
You no longer need to feel powerless to kratom. Help is available. Zinnia Health treatment facilities are located across the country, offering individualized care. Call us at (855) 430-9439 to discuss your needs.
Get Help for Kratom Addiction Today
Despite the benefits of kratom, people who use it can experience dependence on it. Kratom dependence can either be psychological or physiological.
Psychological dependence on kratom includes cravings for the drug. If you’re psychologically addicted to kratom, you may think about it a lot, feel uncomfortable in various settings if you can’t consume the drug, or worry about the next time you’ll get to take it.
You may like being on the drug better than how you feel not being on the drug. Psychological dependence is dangerous because it can greatly interfere with your life.
Still, it is not as dangerous as physical dependence, which can also happen to someone who regularly misuses kratom.
If you use kratom too frequently or at intervals too close together, you are at risk for physical dependence on kratom. Physical dependence means that you don’t just prefer the way you feel on the drug. It means that your body adapts to having it in your system and cannot function properly if kratom is not introduced regularly.
People who become physically dependent on kratom get sick without it. While kratom withdrawal is not dangerous for individuals, it can be very uncomfortable. And the amount of discomfort it causes an individual may make it feel impossible for them to remain clean and sober from the drug.
For that reason, there are treatment centers that exist to help people get through kratom withdrawal.
If you are a person who worries about your kratom usage, how long does it stays in your system, whether kratom it will show up on drug tests, and about your dependence on the drug — know that that help is available.
Across the United States, Zinnia Health treatment centers offer professionals that are trained at helping people stop their usage of kratom, get through the discomfort of the withdrawal process, and learn to live a sober and substance-free life.
Your road to recovery can begin today. At Zinnia Health, we help our clients “heal for good.” Zinnia facilities are leaders in health and healing, meeting the highest quality standards. Ready to overcome your addiction to kratom? Contact us today.
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