Ep 86: How Dan Pitta Discovered Pain Relief and a Mission to Help Others

0:00 Back then there wasn't a lot of information about kratom available, but I saw, I think it was probably in a Reddit group or something, somebody was talking about it. So I decided to give it a try. I found a company that was selling it. I bought some and I took in it. It worked. It, it, it immediately, you know, but obviously once it once it started to get into my system, but, but within about 45 minutes or so after taking my very first dose, I started my research. I felt like I was pretty comfortable with what I had learned at that point. And I started buying more and and before too long my Co workers were asking me why I was moving so differently because they were used to seeing me get out of the truck and stiff hunched over just, you know, visibly in some kind of discomfort every time I would see them. I'm here with Dan PETA from Metrospect. I had his wife Sarah on recently episode 79 of the Crane Stories podcast.

1:07 And now it's time to hear from Dan. Dan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Thanks for having me on I'm I'm very excited. Absolutely. Well, Sarah had a very interesting story about kratom and I know you do as well. And I love that the two of y'all are like the dynamic duo behind Mitrispac is a great brand. I'm so glad that I've gotten connected with you all. Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate that. And yeah, our stories really started together. As Sarah mentioned, I was working as a truck driver. This was back in. Well, I mean, I was injured probably in the mid 2000s, like 2007, somewhere around there. And I had a couple of herniated discs from a work accident. And I eventually got my truck driving license, started driving trucks and then realized that, you know, constantly bouncing up and down in the sea was really wreaking havoc on the injury that was healing, but not all better. So I, I just kind of dealt with it for a while. There was a couple of times that I had to, you know, go on disability, you know, short term disability to, you know, take muscle relaxers and all kinds of things to, to help with it. But for the most part, I just dealt with the pain for a really long time.

2:33 And then around 2013, I started looking for something, you know, to, to make this better. Since I was a truck driver, I was subject to dot drug testing, employer drug testing. So I couldn't take anything illegal. I couldn't take even prescribed drugs. Some of them interfere with your ability to operate machinery. So they don't let you drive a Class A tractor trailer while you're taking a bunch of, you know, Percocets or anything like that. So, so I had to find something that, you know, a wouldn't fail me for a drug test, but BI that I felt, you know, I, I would be able to safely operate a vehicle while taking it. And I started going to the Internet. I was just searching for different things. I've always been kind of experimental. Whenever I, you know, see something new, I like to look into it.

3:29 And if I think it's fine, that might help me. I'll, I'll try it out. So back then there wasn't a lot of information about creating available, but I saw, I think it was probably in a Reddit group or something, somebody was talking about it. So I decided to give it a try and found a company. I didn't, you know, honestly, at that time, I didn't really do a lot of research into it. I, I didn't realize how much there was to it when I started. So I found a company that was selling it. I bought some and I took in it. It worked it, it, it immediately, you know, but obviously once it once it started to get into my system, but, but within about 45 minutes or so after taking my very first dose, I realized that this was the thing that I was looking for.

4:16 And that's when I started looking more into it and to make sure that it, you know, it was reasonably safe and I wasn't trading one problem for another. So I started my research. I felt like I was pretty comfortable with what I had learned at that point. And I started buying more and, and before too long, my coworkers were asking me why I was moving so differently because they're used to seeing me get out of the truck and stiff hunched over just, you know, visibly in some kind of discomfort every time I would see them. And they started noticing that I didn't have that posture. I was more upright and I was in a better mood. I was more energized running, you know, running, running around the truck to do my, my, my straps and everything. And so they, they noticed and they asked me, you know, what I was doing differently.

5:04 And I told them about kratom, started bringing in samples for the guys at work to try. And you know, after not too long of, of doing this, it just spread this. Everybody that tried it seemed to like it and they told other people about it. And so I ended up starting the company that way and, and along the way, you know, once I got that first package and, and saw how much it was helping me, you know, naturally I, I talked about it with Sarah. I told her what I was planning on doing from the very beginning. But when I saw how much it affected me, it was obvious that there were lots of aspects of our lives that could be improved if we were, you know, dealing with less aches and pains and more energized and more motivated and seemed to do all of those things for us.

5:54 So we both enjoyed it and and eventually started our company. That is so interesting. You know, pretty much every kratom company I've gotten connected with at where I purchased my Kratom from or have gotten to know just from interactions and social media is so much like your and Sarah's story where you'll discover kratom. It's amazing. It helps you tremendously. You tell other people about it, you advocate for it, and then it's like turned it into a business. It is so interesting like to me, those are the kind of companies I love being associated with. That's like you, you, you see how much it helps you and other people around you and let's continue helping by having our own kratom business.

6:41 So I think that's amazing. Yeah. And that was a really important factor in us being able to keep the company going because, I mean, naturally every business has its fence of challenges. But this I, I mean, I, I tried to start other businesses that failed. I didn't care enough about what I was trying to do. I, I always wanted to be, you know, a business owner, an entrepreneur. I hated working for other people and having other people have control over my life and my finances. So it was always something that I was interested in doing. But you know, kratom specifically, that just kind of happened by accident.

7:23 But as we started, you know, building the company, as any other owner will say, it's it's a nightmare. A lot of times we had shipments received by the FDA during the salmonella scare. You know, I was, you know, running it at the time of the 2016 DEA emergency scheduling. That was only about a year into it. And I was actually starting to like really grow the business. And then all of a sudden this, you know, I, I get this e-mail saying, Hey, look out for this. And I, I got really worried naturally, both because of my own access to it and, and also all the people that I, you know, had had met and, and referred, you know, Kratom to. So it has a lot of challenges, but the fact that like at least once a week we get an e-mail or a note on an order or just a really nice review that lets us know that we've changed people's lives.

8:21 It makes it worth it to fight through those challenges to keep it going. And that's what I was missing when I was trying to, you know, one of a power washing company and a web design company those I just wasn't as passionate about that as I was about kratom. Once I found how much it changed my life, it completely, you know, changed my ability to provide for my family. So and I knew there was other people out there like me that would be able to benefit from it. And, and now that I've met them and help them, it's, it's the driving force. I love that and and the passion you and Sarah have with much respect really shows in everything you you both do. I love that. So let's go back to when you first discovered kratom. So you said you were just doing some research and and was it like a, and you mentioned Reddit. Was it a specific Reddit post or do you remember like what was the exact thing where you like first learned about Kratom? I, I honestly don't, I remember, I, I could probably give you a better idea of what the search terms I used were and that I believe it was something like back pain relief, no drowsiness, not illegal, won't fail drug test or something along those lines.

9:36 Very, very similar. And I don't remember how far down in the search results kratom might have been, but I know I didn't spend too long after typing in that search phrase. I didn't spend too long before I found the word kratom and then started looking into it. And I, I want to say it was probably through originally. Like the information that I got on it was probably through like arrow it or something, you know, whenever I would hear about some new substance that people are using, I'd always go there and and check like the experience, you know, still the stories. And so that's probably where I first got my information on kratom, but I don't remember the actual like search result, like my very first introduction to it and what page it was.

10:23 Well, that was some time ago. I mean, I, I mean, I'm realizing like I'm asking you like something that happened like in 2013. So I mean, that was a long time ago actually, when we're 2025 now. I just find it so interesting how people discover kratom. For me, it was through the documentary A Leap of Faith that came out in 2019 and it, it came out on Netflix, which I was just so grateful for because I just had lost access to my pain management cause doctors are scared to prescribe. And I was trying to find like, what would be that alternative? What could I take that would give me pain relief? And I, I really was convinced there'd be nothing that would work better than the opiates. Like, 'cause I have really debilitating chronic pain, it doesn't show 'cause I feel so good because of cranium powder. But I really thought I'd have to go to the streets and go find a drug dealer so I could still have the Percocets and the Oxycontin, which to me is absolutely ridiculous and a big, major fail of the medical establishment, you know? But that documentary, A Leap of faith came up in my Netflix. I'm like, what's this?

11:26 This sounds interesting. So I credit that documentary. And I love how they put a spotlight on what happened in 2016 that you touched upon with where the FDA tried to schedule it and ban it and cause a huge uproar. I can't imagine you and Sarah being so new to the kratom industry as a company and then having that, that had to have been scary because not just your livelihood, but access for for the both of you. Yeah, yeah. And at that time, I mean, our our son, he would have been 3 when that news of the, the emergency scheduling started coming around. I think it was, it was actually later in the year, I think the, the like the hearings and stuff were maybe like August or September or something like that. I can't remember exactly.

12:12 But I remembered like the first, like rumors of it coming out right after my son's third birthday. And, and yeah, we, I, we weren't supporting ourselves with the company. But like I said, we had gotten to know so many people who were already benefiting from it. And, and the last thing we wanted not only was to have to, you know, pick up more hours and reconsider for me, reconsider my entire career path because I wasn't going to be able to keep driving a truck if I couldn't use this anymore. There was just no way I was going to have to, you know, do some kind of a desk job. So, yeah, it, it was terrifying. And there's been a lot of those terrifying things that have happened along the way. Like I said, getting a shipment seized, you know, several $1000. At the time we were a lot smaller, but, you know, none of our freedom had ever tested positive for any contaminants. And suddenly the FDA has this import alert out that is causing customs to just seize shipments on the possibility that it may be somewhat contaminated with salmonella possibly. And so we lost thousands of dollars. We weren't with our current supplier at that time. We had just started a relationship with another supplier and he bailed on us essentially. And it's one of the things that we usually tell people about, you know, who are interested in, in starting their own creative business is to be really, really careful of your source. You know, it's, there's, it's,

13:46 there's just so much that can go wrong when you're transferring large amounts of money overseas. So it took us a little while to figure that out. But once we, you know, got bailed upon, you know, by our, our, our supplier after losing a several $1000 shipment, it was like, OK, now you know, a, a good supplier, if that happens, they'll usually split the difference with you. So they'll, they'll cover half the shipment, you cover half the shipment and that way you're not holding the bill for the entire thing. So, you know, we, we did learn a lot because of that. But yeah, just another one of those like terrifying moments in the in the journey. Man, I y'all probably could write a book about, you know, surviving the kratom industry, you know, and like all the, all the lessons y'all have learned.

14:32 We really should do that. That just gives me an idea. I should have you and Sarah on together sometime to do like an episode just talking about the industry and and like just all the lessons y'all have learned because I find it fascinating and y'all been in the industry for for quite some time. So back to your personal story with kratom. So you discover it, it it works great. So was it something that like happened immediately or did it take some trial and error, you know, figuring out the color and the dose and all those things or how how was it early on for you? So I got lucky with my my very first dose, it worked perfectly.

15:12 I did 1 teaspoon. I'm a bigger guy. I'm 6 foot 230 lbs. So I wasn't too worried about, you know, taking that size dose based on what I had read. I'm like, OK, it seems where a lot of people start and I wasn't, you know, again, because of the job, I wasn't taking any other substances or anything. I didn't have any kind of a tolerance to opioids or anything. So it worked at that dose immediately for me. And I, I just figured if, if that dose is working, then that dose is what I'm going to stick with. And I would say I probably raised my dose. It was very consistent for the first several years and then it plateaued just, you know, table topped and, and it hasn't really changed since. But so my, my very first dose was about 2 1/2 grams and then about every year I would up it around 25%. And that seemed to work really well for me, keeping the dose lows, preventing the tolerance build. I was, you know, aware of how easy it is to build a tolerance by putting your dosings too close together. So I always wait at least 4 hours even if I take it and I don't feel anything.

16:24 And I say, oh geez, you know, I only took 4 capsules. I meant to take 6 or whatever. I'll I'll just wait the four hours and and deal with that. And then four hours later I'll I'll take the correct dose. I made that crucial error and learn my lesson very early on. It was Thanksgiving 2014 and I remember taking a dose when I got up getting ready to help Sarah cooking Thanksgiving dinner and while I was rushing around I saw the bag sitting on the table and went. I forgot to take my kratom and I grab it. I take another dose probably about 40 minutes after I took the first one. So as soon as I took it, it starts working and I'm like, uh, oh, so you know, about 40 minutes after that I start getting the wobbles and then my visions going in and out and I'm like, oh man, this isn't fun.

17:21 Laid down on the couch and I was out for like 3 or 4 hours and poor Sarah dinner herself. So, yeah, hard, hard lesson learned about making sure that you're kind of consistent with your dosing and, and not forgetting when you've taken it or, you know, accidentally taking more too soon if you think that your dose isn't working. Probably one of the biggest lessons I can impart on people who are brand new to it. You will have good luck with it if if you just set a dosing plan that you think is going to work for your life. If you need it in the morning, what time every morning are you going to take it? You take it at that time. And then if you need it again in the afternoon or in the evening, what time are you going to take it? And just try to stick to that so you don't accidentally take too much.

18:04 If it starts, you know, not really working and you're expecting that it should, there's a lot of things that could be wrong besides you didn't take enough. So don't just jump right into taking more immediately because that is how you'll build the tolerance very quickly. So yeah, that was, that was like the toughest thing for me to learn was that I, I made a mistake with my dosing, but it didn't really happen again after that because I, I, I did learn my lesson pretty quick. It's not pleasant for sure when you overdo it. I mean, it's not, it's not deadly. I didn't throw up or anything. It was just very unpleasant and made me tired so.

18:45 Yeah, yeah. But you know what's amazing with this plant? The worst thing that typically happens if you take too much as you throw it up and then you're fine. Like it's not going to suppress your breathing and kill you unless, you know, you're taking a whole bunch of drugs with it or, or something that that could cause that. Yeah. That's so interesting. I, I love that you talked about like, being on schedule or that consistency. I kept a journal, a dose journal when I first started, and that helped me tremendously. So I can really gauge what was working because it took me a little bit of trial and error, experimenting with the colors and finding that Reds don't do much for me and whites make me too jittery. But finding that greens worked really well.

19:27 And then I really preferred powder over capsules and just little things that like figuring it out, just sticking to a schedule. But everybody's different. And, but I find it interesting when people talk about how why just take a spoonful? And I'm like, well, how much is your spoonful? And because some people talk about I took too much and I don't know how I did that. It's like, well, how are you measuring it? Are you a fan of like using a scale? Because a lot of people say always use a scale. I I'm 6 1/2 years in, I've used kratom every single day. I've never had a tolerance issue. I've never taken a break and I still use my same little baking teaspoon thing from the day one. And I'm just really very aware of how I measure and it's very consistent.

20:12 But some people say, oh, you're better off using a scale than some people say, yeah, I just grab a spoon. I just take a heaping amount and I just do do a toss and wash. What are your thoughts on like the different ways and like having making? You don't take too much. So I do advocate for a scale when you're, when you're new to it, especially if you're somebody who's usually sensitive to substances. You know, if you, if you're somebody that can take 1, you know, Advil and your headache goes away, you know, or your backache goes away or something like that, then then you're probably a little bit more sensitive to substances that you put into your body. If you take a sip of coffee and you're shaking and bouncing off the walls, then get a scale because the difference between, you know, a packed level teaspoon and a fluffy teaspoon could be, you know, a half a gram or more.

21:08 And for somebody who's sensitive to it and maybe only needs a half a teaspoon, you know, if you, if you come, you know, somewhere closer to 3/4 of a tea stone, you're getting almost 50% higher dose. And you could have a bad experience that way or certainly at least get different effects than what you're expecting. If you take white and you take, you know, 50% more than you need, it may make you tired. So I do advocate for using a scale in the beginning for sure, But if you're somebody who's a little bit less sensitive to things, then a measuring spoon works good. Just don't, you know, to anybody out there who's grabbing the spoon that you eat a bowl of cereal with and, and just digging it into a bag of cream, you should probably put it on a scale and see how much you're actually getting because it's probably not a teaspoon. And, and it's always good to know in case you have to change forms just for convenience.

22:00 If, if you know, you normally take, you know, about a teaspoon and now you go, you know, oh, I want to try capsules. Well, do you, do you know how to convert the amount that you're scooping into the dose that you're going to take in capsule form? We, we made a conversion chart for our capsules because they're larger than most of the capsules in the industry and they're, they're more packed. So like, you know, if you go to our website or when you buy from us, we send an information brochure that has a conversion chart that shows, you know, teaspoons, grams and capsules, which I think is helpful. And that would be my second, you know, recommendations. If you're new to kratom, maybe try a consistent form to make dosing and figuring everything out easier. If you go to a capsule product, then you can easily figure out what your dose is and keep it the same every time. Versus, you know, if you're playing around with the scoop and you don't necessarily know if you're scooping the same amount every time.

23:02 Yeah, that's that's smart advice. I love that y'all send the little brochure with an order. When I first got kratom from you guys and I saw that little brochure, I'm like, this is helpful information, especially that conversion like you're talking about. When I first started kratom in 2019, I couldn't understand this. Everything was in grams. I'm like, I just want to use my little teaspoon and and you know, dose this way. I don't understand. Like and then when I couldn't find any information back then that would explain the difference, I literally found out maybe just a few years ago that approximately 2.4 grams is a teaspoon, like approximately. And I'm like, wow, I really never understood all of that. And I love that in your company.

23:44 Is there a really big on education making sure people understand? Because when you're new to this, there's so people think, just tell me what you buy. I'm about your build. I have degenerative disease like you just tell me. I'm like, it's not like that at all. You know, I, I you might need a quarter of a teaspoon and it'll help your pain. You might find the Reds work better for you, unlike me with the greens. Like people just, I think we're so conditioned in with medical stuff, with pharmaceuticals that you take just like growing up, take two aspirin and call me in the morning, right? Like it's not like that. It affects everybody differently. So it's just sometimes hard to explain that to people.

24:27 So I love that y'all are always educating. I think that's really important. Yeah, I, I look at it as, you know, I see the traffic that goes to our website versus the people that are buying. And, and early on I said, you know, what is it that's stopping people from buying that are coming to the website? If if you see all of these reviews saying, you know, this worked for me, you'd see the product laid out nice and easily and you're there for a reason. I mean, you're trying to buy it or you're trying to learn more about buying it and then you don't make a purchase. You know, why is that? And that's, I love just getting information. Whatever it is that I'm buying, I always look at the description and I felt like not having that basic information and just seeing a bunch of weird names on the screen was probably one of the things that was slowing people down. And then we have all the blends.

25:24 You know, every company has their proprietary blends, which in the early days, this is like probably the big reason for why there's actually kratom blends. It it was about people finding your kratom. I mean, if you just searched kratom, then you'd find 100 companies. But if you search happy go lucky kratom, then you're going to find metrospect. And so it was really more about like branding and and trying to differentiate yourself by putting different strings together to try and get something that gives you a little bit of a new effect, but also to get a name out there that people can search that'll take them to your website versus any one of the the other companies. So that was, you know, kind of kind of important, I guess, you know, it's.

26:10 Smart, it's smart. I love it. I think that's really smart business. I love that a lot. I know I'm like asking you questions and we're going back and forth all over different directions, but I want to go back again to when you started Kratom and initially it was for your back pain issues and what else did kratom do? Because so many times people say, gosh, kratom not only helps my pain issues, but or helps me curb my addiction issues to opiates or this or that. They always find other things that create, you know, whether it's the energy boost or oh, I don't even crave alcohol anymore. I don't even drink alcohol anymore. I just know, like sometimes people say, I just noticed like, wow, I've got beer in the fridge that's been sitting there for months.

26:51 I just realized I don't even want want it anymore. Like what are just some of the other benefits you got from kratom? Energy was the big thing for me. Like I said, I wasn't just driving a truck. I was driving a truck at night. And I had been doing a night shift for a while. But having young kids at home made it quite a bit different. You know, it was a lot harder to sleep during the day. So it, it, it was one of the requirements when I started doing my research that it was something that, you know, wasn't going to make me tired and if anything would give me energy. And so seeing that kratom's a cousin of the coffee plant and that it has alkaloids that can be, you know, stimulating, that was a big thing for me.

27:39 And I was really happy that I, I started with whites and greens. I didn't even really know much about the strains when I started buying. And I had done a little bit of reading, but I didn't realize it was such a huge difference. I didn't know much about alkaloid profiles And, and so I, I started with white and green and they, they worked really well for me. I tried red and, and that did help me if I was sore one night when I was going to sleep or, you know, 11 morning when I was going to sleep. But the, the energy was, was a big part of it. And I'm also fairly shy and I find that when I take kratom, it makes me a little bit more social, a little bit more outgoing and a little bit, you know, just a little bit more laid back in social situations. And I, I've heard over the years that, you know, there's other people who do get that same sort of effect, but it seems like it's a little bit more rare, but it, but it does seem to help me a little bit with social anxiety. So it's another, you know, kind of side benefit for me. That's great.

28:43 And since you're, you were a trucker and you talked to other truckers and, and, you know, told them about kratom because it's common for people I know not in your situation, but a lot of people will like, OK, I take this medication and that medication, then the doctor prescribes another medication for the side effect of this other one and this nut. And so many times people discover kratom and they're like, I was able to stop all those medications. Have you met like truckers from back then when you were in that industry that like not only kratom was helping them, you know, from, from, you know, when them seeing how it affected you, but like, wow, I was taking all these other meds. I don't have to do that anymore. Were you running into 'cause I, I can't even imagine what the whole trucker thing and the kind of pains and pains and all the issues and staying awake and this and that, Although you just say they're very strict with medications even prescribed. But I'm just curious like how were other truckers affected by this?

29:42 Well, it was true for me and true for a lot of people that I talked to was that it not, not so much like really, you know, pain relieving drugs, but I, I was taking 800 milligrams of ibuprofen several times a day, usually four times a day. So what 2400 milligrams of ibuprofen a day? It's, it's really bad for your stomach at those levels. And a lot of the people that I've talked to, that's been one of the things that they've been able to, to save themselves is the, the stomach issues from taking and said pain relievers that that can be really damaging to your stomach lining if you take them in higher levels. We've had lots of, you know, customers that were able to stop traditional, you know, pain medications, opiate pain medications, But I don't know that I've heard too many other stories myself, like first hand of people being able to get off of other prescriptions, safe board like depression, anxiety, things like that.

30:43 But I do hear those stories every once in a while. I mean, it helps Sarah tremendously. She's very anxious and and so you know that that was a huge help for her. It did really help with her anxiety. And then and then we found ashwaganda, which helps tremendously with anxiety. So yeah, I love ashwaganda and I've actually just tried those Ashwagandha capsules and I'm really impressed with them. Super because I've only used ashwagandha that were like a gummy with that, plus other things, you know, like maybe ashwagandha with elfini and reishi. And I've had another one that was like CBD. I know ashwagandha was in there, but I think a few more things. So it was the first time I actually did just an ashwagandha only. And I love that your capsules are so big. Like that's not common in the kratom industry. And so I'm super impressed.

31:33 They're real. I'm a big fan of Ashwagandha but I really enjoy the ones y'all put out. Thank you. I appreciate that. And yeah, our, our capsule size and the fact that we sell capsules at all is part of how we got into the business. And, you know, I, I heard obviously from everybody that I was giving the powder to that it was disgusting. Nobody that I knew like the taste of it. And so I started hand pressing tablets on a little like, you know, I mean, it was heavy duty, but it was literally a hand crank that you turn and it puts the powder into a mold and then presses it into a tablet shape. And I was turning those things out, you know, in a in a makeshift clean room in my garage. And because I wanted a more convenient delivery system than the powder toss and washer, mixing it in with a drink. And that's what I was doing before that because, you know, frankly, I couldn't afford to buy the capsules early on, you know, not for myself at the, you know, the amounts that I was taking.

32:32 I was like, it's seems like a waste of money if I can get a machine, you know, and do it myself. So I'd started doing that and then went to the capsules when I realized it was so much easier to press capsules. But yeah, that that the, the capsule thing was a big part of us starting the, the company because there wasn't a lot of companies out there that were selling easier to take formats at that time. And and just because you since you brought up like the size of the capsules and stuff that was like it's always been the focus of the business has been our capsules. And and so we do take a lot of pride in in, you know, how how we fill them and yeah, how big they are can be a problem for some people though, 000.

33:19 Capsules. Are are a bigger capsule, so they're. They're big, but the beauty is you don't have to take as many capsules. Exactly. You know what, when I first started kratom, you know, of course I started with capsules because everybody said the stuff tastes bad. The powder is gross. And I was like, oh, I don't want to have to taste nasty powder because I'm not going to want to consume it. So I bought capsules, but you know, they're typically the .5g size and if you need, you know, a substantial number of grams, then, you know, you can be taking 8 or 10 or more capsules. And that's a lot of capsule shells. Not so much It's, oh, that's a lot of capsules. I think people don't understand, like it's just the powder. So, you know, when you open up the capsules and put it on a spoon, you'll see it's not really that much. I mean, my typical dose is 2 teaspoons, which is, you know, close to 5 grams, but that would that could be a lot. That could be 10 capsules of the .5g capsules. And that's the problem I ran into was all those capsule shells sitting in my stomach and I felt like they weren't opening up and I'm like, I wasn't feeling the effects of this. I'm like, something's not right here. And I love how your company does the vegan capsules. So number one, that's just a better type of capsule to begin with.

34:36 You're doing the bigger ones so you're not ingesting as much. But you did a video recently where you showed like a time lapse of how your capsules open fairly quickly. And I think that's so interesting to learn about that now. It just gives me this whole new thought of, I mean, I'm used to the taste now, so it's no big deal. I've been doing the swamp water every day, multiple times a day for 6 1/2 years. So it doesn't bother me anymore. But it's like it kind of makes me think I should kind of look at capsules again because it is easier to take on the go. I have tablets, press tablets, but not very many companies create those or sell those. There's not a common. It's interesting that you did the whole hand crank. I can't even imagine how tough that must have been to be cranking those out that way.

35:22 But you know, when people are new, if it tastes bad, they don't want to do it. I stuck with it because I like, well, is this or find a drug dealer? So I was kind of like, OK, I got to make this work, so I will figure it out. But some people say, yeah, try this powder. It tastes gross. I just can't. I just can't so. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's definitely an interesting flavor. And I, I when I first started, I would take it with chocolate milk. That was the thing that, I don't know, orange juice worked fine for me. Like I'd put, you know, a scoop in with a, in a water bottle and pour some orange juice in and just shake it around and, and drink that. I always found like, you know, citrusy acidic flavors usually do a good job of canceling out the bitterness of the, the, the kratom, but milk actually really did a pretty good job for me too, you know, heavily chocolate syruped up.

36:15 But it was, you know, it wasn't that bad that way. So that was my, you know, preferred delivery method before we started doing the, the tablets and then later the capsules. And yeah, the, the, the vegan capsule thing. Vegan capsules are more expensive. It's not a whole lot more, but at scale it kind of is. So, you know, we used to do the gelatin capsules and then we had a vegan option available and we charged a little bit more for that just to cover the extra cost of producing the vegan with the, the, the raw, you know, capsule price. And once I started reading more about them and taking them myself and realizing that we had a lot of customers out there who were buying the powder just because they were vegan and they didn't want to take beef gelatin, that's when we were like, OK, we're just going to switch. Because at at this point we're, we're doing enough of these vegan, you know, capsule orders that it, it just doesn't really make sense to keep doing the gelatin also. So we just switched over and everything became vegan. And I was noticing when I was taking my capsules that it was, you know, taking effect a lot faster than I was expecting most of the time.

37:30 And that's when I started looking more into the, the, the, the dissolving rate of different materials. And Polluin has the fastest rate of any, you know, solid capsule. And, and then I was like, I got to see this myself. Like, I know what it looks like if I drop a capsule and, you know, the sink or something, and it takes forever to dissolve. So let me see what happens when I put these. And I just put it in a glass with, I think the water was about 94° because that's what I could get out of my tap at the time. And I plopped the capsule in there and I started watching it and give it a little stir to simulate movement in your stomach or whatever. But the things started dissolving after like 4 minutes, it starts to soften and then by 7 minutes it's completely dissolved. And, and the the Kratoms all dispersed in the water. And I thought that was really good to illustrate to people who I had heard over the years say, I don't buy capsules because they don't dissolve.

38:28 They do dissolve like everything in your stomach. There's other some things that the acid, you know, in your stomach won't touch, but your stomach acid is really strong. So, you know, if you can eat a piece of steak, you, you, you can imagine that the gelatin capsule that's made from, you know, the, the byproducts of that steak are going to dissolve just fine. But balloon is made from tapioca starch. It's, it's less susceptible to moisture, so they don't get sticky. If there's a lot of humidity in the air, they will still get sticky, but not as, not as much as gelatin capsules. And just the fact that they dissolved so much faster was like an eye opener for me because I know there's a lot of people that, you know, they, they procrastinate, they, they take the Kratom after they're already feeling the back pain instead of, you know, taking it proactively and preemptively.

39:17 And, you know, if you're, if you're hurting and you need something to work fast, you know, plain powder, probably with, you know, some, some citrus juice will definitely, you know, get you there faster. But if you're on the go and you've got a couple of capsules in your pocket, it's a little better to wait 7 minutes for it to start, you know, dissolving and working than to wait 47 minutes. It's definitely easier to have capsules with you on the go for sure. This is such a great explanation you're giving us because I was I was actually going to ask you what was pulling because I'd heard of that didn't quite understand. So you said that's tapioca starch And for people that don't really understand this whole thing with because you know, when we say vegan capsules versus the gelatin, so the gelatin is made with animal by products. So it just what just a little harder to dissolve or just takes longer to dissolve basically.

40:15 Yeah, I, I mean, I'm not sure. I don't go too much into the mechanics of how you know how one dissolves slower than the other one. But yeah, most of the capsules that you buy are going to be bovine gelatin. So they're, they're literally made out of, you know, cow hooves and, and the gelatinous, you know, product that comes when they render, you know, meat or dog food or whatever. I mean, it is, it is a by product. And, and if it's, you know, if it's edible, then it's being used by some industry. And gelatin capsules are, are probably one of those things that, you know, I don't really want to know how it's made if I have to take them. But I'm really, I'm really glad that there's, you know, that there's capsule or capsules that are made out of something other than gelatin, I should say. And so, yeah, I, I'm, I'm a big fan of, of vegan, vegan or vegetarian.

41:07 There are vegetarian capsules that aren't exactly vegan. And I don't know why that is. I don't know why they can't be, you know, certified as vegan. But the Puluan capsules said they're made of tapioca starch. There's nothing else in there, you know, so it it or this, this very, very minute we, you can see it on the ingredients. If you buy a package of our capsules, we have the full breakdown of what's actually in the capsules. It's really only three ingredients, so they're very basic, but it's all plant derived. So yeah, it does. It does feel a little bit better knowing that you're just, you know, consuming some plant material versus what you what you might be getting the other way around.

41:50 Yeah, now this is very educational. I guarantee you somebody's listening to this right now going, wow, I did not know that. Thank you, Dan, for sharing that. I'm going to pay more attention when I'm buying capsules now. So I this is great. But yeah, I mean, I didn't, I didn't never really understood much of the difference in pulling being the tapioca starch. That's really interesting to know and makes me want to use capsules knowing that information, even though I'm used to the taste of kratom. But it is nice when you're out and about to be able to to consume kratom easily and you know, capsules or the whole leaf tablets make it just so much easier. And so y'all are known for powder and capsules.

42:32 I already knew about your company because in our kratom real talk community where we have, you know, lots of discussions about kratom without censorship is so nice and refreshing because I tell you, I've been in TikTok trouble this week. They wouldn't let when my videos go up yesterday, it took over 24 hours for the appeal to go through. I was just in YouTube jail for a week because they didn't like one of my videos. Now I'm out of YouTube jail and then Facebook is on a rampage deleting every post that has the word kratom in it and I've gotten all these notifications from them and then they put me in a timeout for live streaming for a week and it's like, OK, I live stream on Facebook about social media and AI stuff.

43:15 So I'm pretty pissed I can't live stream that this week because of five posts, most of them from two years ago, that happened to have the word kratom in it. And I hardly ever talk about kratom on my personal Facebook. But it's incredibly frustrating how social media treats us when we're just trying to help educate people about kratom. So I'm so glad I have us in a community on the school platform, kratomrealtalk.com. I'm glad that you and Sarah joined but already knew about y'all because one of our community members would always rave about the vegan capsules from Metrospect. And whenever conversations mention anything with capsules, he would John would always like chime in with that and say the vegan capsules from introspect are the best. And so y'all are getting lots of shout outs in there before y'all joined us.

44:06 So I, I, I just find it. I just love that y'all are known for the vegan capsules and the powder, especially in this time where the whole 7 O eight thing has been going on the last few years. What, what's your thought on that? Because that's been like a huge, it went out to like dive deep into that. But, you know, tell us like what your thoughts are on that as somebody that's in the kratom industry. Sure. Well, since you mentioned the the two products that we're most known for, the powder and capsules, I just want to quickly say that because of the two issues that come up from those two products, you know, powder having a bad taste and capsules sometimes being too big to swallow, that we did start selling a gummy product.

44:53 But here's where the two things kind of tie together. Our gummies are mitragenine only, so there's No 7 OH in them. And I'm really glad that we did it that way because as soon as all of the information, the news started coming out about the government potentially trying to ban it, schedule it, we immediately got a call from our payment processor. It was like 2 days after the first story that I saw about it. We got a call from our payment processor saying if you have any products in your store that contain any enhanced levels or artificial seven O 8, you need to pull them immediately or you're going to need to find another processor. And we've lost payment processors so many times over the years because nobody really, you know, in the banking industry wants to get involved in a product that isn't, you know, you know, that is illegal in some places and some jurisdictions.

45:47 So basically, you know, every couple years we lose a credit card processor and we have to go to these weird, you know, alternative means to process cards or to accept payments some other way because of that. So I, I started thinking so much about that. Oh, so that the seven, Oh yeah, we were told that we, you know, would have to immediately remove 7 OH, products. So I was glad that we didn't have any that, that, you know, matched what they were concerned with. But that was by design too. We started getting asked a long time ago if we had extract products. And we've always been advocates for just sticking to natural, you know, whole leaf kratom, the way that it comes from the plant.

46:36 It's not that we think that there's anything wrong with extracts necessarily, as long as they're used responsibly. But it was a concern over or a combination of things. But it was like we were seeing that we had a lot of customers who, you know, they didn't want to do a lot of research themselves. They just want to take something that worked. And they weren't the type that we're going to be like really carefully measuring with the scale. We feel like, you know, if you're taking extracts, you could really do some damage and get yourself seriously addicted if you're taking more than you realize you're taking. So it's so it's kind of like we felt like there was too many possible, you know, concerns for our customers getting themselves into trouble accidentally with extracts and that, you know, 17 OH became available as, you know, an additive to edible products and stuff or just, you know, synthetic 7 OH that you can add to enhance a powder.

47:37 We decided to just stay away from it and just keep on the whole natural kratom, you know, position that we've had and that way we don't have to worry about trying to explain to our customers, listen, this, this is 16 times stronger. So if you normally take, you know, 2 1/2 grams and I need to divide that, you know, by 16 and take, you know, this miniscule amount. So it's kind of a safety thing for us. I, I don't believe that anything, you know, at least substances. I don't, I don't really think that anything should be illegal if it's natural. Yeah, there's some dangerous, you know, synthetic stuff out there that should definitely not be in the hands of of pretty much anybody.

48:18 But if it comes from the ground, I don't really see how that's something that the government should have a place. There you go. And so that's kind of where I draw the line with 7OH. If it's if it's naturally derived 7OH from a plant and it's extracted and there's enough information being provided so that the user understands what they're getting themselves into, then that's great. And that's really what we need is regulation. You need, you need somebody to say, if you're going to have this product, then you need to let people know how dangerous it can be. And that's what we're not seeing on the shelves right now. So I do have a problem with the seven OH products that are being sold the way they're being sold, but I definitely don't want to see them made illegal and have people.

49:03 I ran into a guy the other day at a local vape shop where we have some of our THC products on the shelves. And I was talking to the owner of the store about how he was having to pull all of his seven OH products. And this guy says, Oh yeah, that's why I'm here right now. And he's because I'm on my way to a meeting so that I can possibly get on Suboxone to get off of Kratom. And it's like, well, you're, you're, you know, you're not really on Kratom right now. Like I like, you know, and he knew that, like he knew that he had gotten himself into trouble with it for sure. But he really looked like, you know, like he was going through a really rough time having to figure out what he was going to do now that he had this, you know, access to this thing. And it was helping him.

49:53 And in whatever way it was, even if it had become, you know, addictive or, you know, at at levels where it's hard to get back off without, you know, medical intervention. But to see that, you know, that's going to suddenly be taken away like that, you know, versus just regulating and providing A pathway for the people who already using these products to safely transition to something that is safer, you know, I don't want to see that happen. Yeah, well, I love hearing your take on that. I think regulation is the way to go. We just need some regulation, not prohibition, but regulation. With all of this last quick question before we wrap up here, knowing everything you know about kratom now, you've been in this industry a long time, You've been a long time consumer. What advice would you give someone who's just starting out in their own kratom journey?

50:45 I think we touched on most of it like the, the, the dosing thing being consistent, you know, is, is huge and starting with a small enough dose. Like I said, I'm, I'm, I'm not a small guy, but a teaspoon worked great for me when I first started. Now like I, I explained, I, I, you know, gradually moved up every year and I would not make that adjustment before the year. I'm at 4.8g. I, you know, I take 6 of the 800 milligram capsules and some, I'm probably right around the same level that you are. You said you were just below about 5g I think and that's been working for me now for probably four or five years.

51:27 I haven't had to adjust it at all. If I do find that it's not working as well, I usually look to other other parts of my well-being that might be affecting the kratom versus thinking that the kratom suddenly not doing something for me. So I, I, I always ask, you know, did I get a rough night's sleep? Am I, you know, tired? Being more tired than usual will impact your kratom experience. Am I hydrated? You know, did I have any water yesterday that I have as much as I normally do, which is probably an obscene amount. So hydration huge, consistency huge.

52:07 And you know, like overall Wellness can affect it too. I mean, it's taken as long as you have. I'm sure you've noticed that if you have a cold or you have the flu or something, you take Kratom. It might not feel like it usually does. It'll make you feel better than you did, you know, it'll usually help alleviate some of the symptoms, but you're also going to notice that it's not going to, it's not going to feel like it always does. So, you know, if if you're new to kratom and you're taking it for a little while and you see that it's suddenly not working the way that you expect, it is don't just assume that you need to take more. Check your hydration, check your sleep, check if you're, you know, maybe coming down with something because those things will affect it too. And then obviously, you know, the source matters. Make sure you're buying from somebody or a company that you can trust and you know, be consistent, take notes. Like you said, a journal was great. We, we used to have a journal, but they, they just weren't selling very well.

53:09 So it wasn't really worth it for us to keep it around. But we did have a Kratom journal that was for sale on the website for a little while. Maybe we'd bring that back because there's a lot of different options for printing that. We should talk because I've been wanting to do that and team up with somebody to do that is something that's been on my like To Do List for a long time. This has been great. Dan, thank you so much for spending time with us today and sharing your kratom journey with us. I really appreciate it. Oh, thank you so much for having me on. I had such a blast talking to you. I told you I I never do this kind of thing. I was really nervous, but this was really, really fun. And I know Sarah mentioned we know a few people who are athletes that might be interested in coming on too. So we're trying to talk to them and see if we can get them to come on and tell their story and how kratom help them with their, you know, with their lifestyle being, you know, most of the martial artists who get beat up for a living, so.

53:58 Right. I would love that. I mean, yeah. Anybody you ever know, send them my way. And for our listeners, if you'd like to have your story shared, get in touch with me. Contact me through cranestoriespodcast.com. I have a contact form on our website or reach out to me on social media. Thanks, Dan. This this has been a great conversation. Thanks Madeline. I'll look forward to talking to you again soon.