I've read the back-and-forth on the liver study and have come to understand the often-cited study was mostly bogus, but the liver toxicity "finding" has been run with and repeated.
That said, I have come to a place where I do question if daily Kava consumption is keeping my liver tied up from processing the things I take.
I've been doing a slow taper from K@, and Kava has helped. But I have been fluctuating badly.
On the "good days", when I'm feeling the things I normally take, it is wonderful. It's on those days I think back to my low point from a few days ago and say "I don't see HOW I ever felt that bad."
On the low days, I won't even begin to call it the "dark cloud" that people sometimes use to describe general sadness. I have nothing negative in my life right now to be down about, for which I'm grateful, but on the days when it seems my body doesn't want to process/metabolize/uptake/whatever, then it's a sense of dread out of this world. Impending doom.
Worry about things that I have no reason to worry about. Fearful.
When it first happened, I felt hopeless, and that's a bad place to be. But as it keeps happening (ie. I get low, but a few days later go back up), I've learned to just *KNOW* it will get better, because it has before. That is a huge help.
My family and faith are such that I would never want to do anything to harm myself or anything like that. Though I have a better understanding of why people may do the things they do.
I'm grasping for answers. One time I thought it was a lack of fats (and wrote here about MCT/coconut oil)... then I thought it was simply needing to use digestive enzymes.
Had some bloodwork, checked thyroid, even did the food allergy testing (IGG - which I'm on the fence about anyway).
Most recent was I finally caved and got on an antidepressant: Wellbutrin @ 150mg.
The knowledge that I'm about to be dependent on two things (K@ & Wellbutrin) weighs on me. (I have researched the lowering of the seizure threshold, and have found accounts of K@ and Wellbutrin being used safely). I've been on it nearly two weeks. The good days have been even BETTER than before - and allowed me to drop the K@ faster.
By the way, I'm doing a "blind taper". My wife prepares my servings, and I know it may be the same as yesterday, or less - she's keeping up with it, but I don't want to know the amounts.
There is power in NOT knowing. At the end of a good few days, it's a great feeling when I ask and find out I made it just fine on a low daily gram amount.
Sorry for this long post. I'm just sharing in hopes that SOMEBODY out there has experienced something similar, or that somebody knows what may be going on.
In the meantime, I'll be going without Kava. It may be as simple as that. Hitting my body with it daily (twice a day for over a year, until the start of this year, when I dropped the lunch Kava and dropped to just drinking Kava at night.) might be the issue. I hope that's all it is.
I sincerely appreciate your advice.
That said, I have come to a place where I do question if daily Kava consumption is keeping my liver tied up from processing the things I take.
I've been doing a slow taper from K@, and Kava has helped. But I have been fluctuating badly.
On the "good days", when I'm feeling the things I normally take, it is wonderful. It's on those days I think back to my low point from a few days ago and say "I don't see HOW I ever felt that bad."
On the low days, I won't even begin to call it the "dark cloud" that people sometimes use to describe general sadness. I have nothing negative in my life right now to be down about, for which I'm grateful, but on the days when it seems my body doesn't want to process/metabolize/uptake/whatever, then it's a sense of dread out of this world. Impending doom.
Worry about things that I have no reason to worry about. Fearful.
When it first happened, I felt hopeless, and that's a bad place to be. But as it keeps happening (ie. I get low, but a few days later go back up), I've learned to just *KNOW* it will get better, because it has before. That is a huge help.
My family and faith are such that I would never want to do anything to harm myself or anything like that. Though I have a better understanding of why people may do the things they do.
I'm grasping for answers. One time I thought it was a lack of fats (and wrote here about MCT/coconut oil)... then I thought it was simply needing to use digestive enzymes.
Had some bloodwork, checked thyroid, even did the food allergy testing (IGG - which I'm on the fence about anyway).
Most recent was I finally caved and got on an antidepressant: Wellbutrin @ 150mg.
The knowledge that I'm about to be dependent on two things (K@ & Wellbutrin) weighs on me. (I have researched the lowering of the seizure threshold, and have found accounts of K@ and Wellbutrin being used safely). I've been on it nearly two weeks. The good days have been even BETTER than before - and allowed me to drop the K@ faster.
By the way, I'm doing a "blind taper". My wife prepares my servings, and I know it may be the same as yesterday, or less - she's keeping up with it, but I don't want to know the amounts.
There is power in NOT knowing. At the end of a good few days, it's a great feeling when I ask and find out I made it just fine on a low daily gram amount.
Sorry for this long post. I'm just sharing in hopes that SOMEBODY out there has experienced something similar, or that somebody knows what may be going on.
In the meantime, I'll be going without Kava. It may be as simple as that. Hitting my body with it daily (twice a day for over a year, until the start of this year, when I dropped the lunch Kava and dropped to just drinking Kava at night.) might be the issue. I hope that's all it is.
I sincerely appreciate your advice.