Super human strength at the gym? No. Feelings of euphoria or hallucinations? Definitely not. Nausea, sweating and dizziness? None of that either.

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These are just some of the alleged side effects of kratom, according to widely varied internet reports — though certainly not what I experienced while recently experimenting with the herbal supplement.

Though it's sometimes mentioned as a "legal high," kratom is not like Spice, a sort of synthetic marijuana. It’s not the hallucinogenic, tweak-out inducing salvia. And it’s certainly not 2012’s street drug of the year, bath salts.

Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is a plant native to Southeast Asia in the coffee family. It's said in low doses to relieve pain as an alternative to opiates, to increase concentration, and to improve mood. In higher doses, it can reportedly have a sedative effect.

There's limited medical research about kratom and its risks — though it's not risk-free. It’s banned in Australia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand and in the US states of Indiana and Tennessee. Recently, a bill was introduced in Florida to ban the herb. Across the US, several reports of deaths and addiction led the DEA to place kratom on its list of “Drugs and Chemicals of Concern.”

Business Insider published an article detailing kratom's wide variety of side effects as collected from several blogs. “2015 could be the year of kratom, the sleeper-hit wonder drug that’s as schizophrenic as the internet that spawned it,” Shane Dixon Kavanaugh of Vocativ wrote.

I lived in Miami during the 2012 “bath salts induced face eating zombie incident that wasn’t actually caused by bath salts,” and since then I've been intrigued by any new internet-famous drug. I reached out to several herbal supplement distributors and obtained samples from from Lucky and Online Kratom.

I do not have chronic pain, so I cannot speak to its usefulness in that realm, but I am always looking for a natural alternative to caffeine when I need a jolt of energy. I rarely drink coffee and will have tea as-needed for an energy boost.

My plan was to try kratom for two weeks (excluding weekends) to see if I had a miracle drug on my hands or was about to make a huge mistake.

A note: it's possible that some or all of what I felt was due to a placebo effect, and since kratom has risks that aren't well defined, we don't recommend trying this.

Day 1 - Monday

Refreshed from the weekend, I didn't hit a brick wall until 2:45PM, when the post-lunch sleepiness had my eyes closing at my standing desk. I took the recommended dosage of three capsules of 850mg Maeng Da Kratom.

Within thirty minutes I felt a slight buzz, similar to a very light dosage of Adderall. This lasted for about three hours, and then I felt normal. My heart rate seemed unchanged, and I focused more on the video I was editing. My mind did not wander, but I felt like a muted version of myself. I finished editing but lacked the creative edge that keeps me thinking about other ideas.

Day 2 - Tuesday

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The sleep accumulated from the weekend was gone, and I felt lethargic by 10:45AM. I took the recommended dosage of 6 capsules of Parvati White Thai. This is a different strain of kratom.

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