Been taking it daily for a few weeks now and have noticed many positive changes in my body, and prefer it to taking aspirin or white willow bark as it seems much less toxic. Not to mention i think its a much better anti-inflammatory than aspirin.

So i bought 8oz of shredded cats claw bark, and 8oz of bark powder and want to try some kind of extraction on a portion of the material. I'm taking a 25x extract of it i bought from an online vendor @ 25mg 2x daily, and am looking for a more economical option without dealing with capsules of powder. I Really don't like gelcaps (always get stuck in my throat) and dosing the ~25mg of powder t/w style is my preferred method. I guess smoothies or toss and wash is possible w/ the powder, but i want to explore some alternatives as well.

Anyway, i know extracts are possible, the alkaloids in question are tetracyclic & pentacyclic oxindoles. Does anyone have any idea what extraction method would be ideal here? I assume an acidic water crude extraction is a good place to start as its used as a tea traditionally.

Other than that, what about alcohol extractions (iso or acetone) or some kind of a/b or stb? How fragile are these molecules, would heat/extreme ph's damage them?

If anyone has any information regarding the extraction, or chemical properties of this plant relevant to extraction, it would be very much appreciated.

I was just goint to make a thread about cats claw!

This stuff is some serious medicine! I drink alot of cats claw and always always add it to my ayahausca..Really helped me deal with the flu these last few days also..It is a common ayahuasca admixture in the amazon and many tribes concider it THE medicine of the jungle.

No information here on extracting it though..I just brew up a tea and drink it all day. Heat is said to degrade these alkaloids..simmer for no longer than 20 minutes is what I have heard about making the tea..

Cool, thanks for the advice!

Definitely going to try the tea tomorrow. I tried 500mg of the powder capped today instead of my 25x, and it worked pretty much the same.

Do you add any acid to your brews when making tea, and hows the taste? Hopefully its not full of tannins like mhrb or kratom.

Also, if you've tried caps/eating powder have you noticed you had to use more w/ the tea to get affects vs. powder? Just wondering if dosages are going to be the same.

Always heard about it being added to aya and didn't think much about it until i did some research and found out it had all those neat/useful alkaloids in it. A true gem of the amazon, I'm gonna have to toss some in a brew one of these days.

Thanks-

interesting cats claw is also reported to have slight NMDA antagonist effects..I have noticed when I drink alot of it that it is mildy psychoactive..hard to really say just what it is doing though..but I feel sort of energized after I drink a big dose..

I just brew it in spring water without any acids..never tried the caps. The tea does taste bitter..and there is some tannins..not like mimosa though..it is bitter but I dont have a problem getting it down..you dont reduce it so that helps. Sometimes I add some honey.

I've heard of the nmda antagonist activity of cats calw too, was mentioned in a discussion on another forum about possible natural disassociatives. I take racetams/noopept daily though, so that really dulls/blocks alot of disassociatives ime. I don't think its really all that prevalent though, its probably only dissociative in large doses. The other alkaloids it shares w/ kratom could be potentially psyschoactive in some way as well. The only real "side" affect i noticed was slight sedation. But thats expected from its rhynchophylline content. Edit- lol rhynchophylline is the nmda antagonist, also a ca channel blocker, prob why it seems anti-hypertensive to me.

I'll try a no acid brew tomorrow and see how that works. Tea would be a fine compromise between caps and extraction i think, as long as it does not taste too foul or churn the gut.

Thanks for the advice