The most common side effects I have experienced from taking something that my body doesn’t agree with is a headache or a rash. It is easy to tell where the headache has come from but the rash can be very tricky. This is because it may not develop until many months after starting something new and may not disappear until months after quitting. I took kava occasionally in small doses for years without any problems. Eventually I started taking larger doses and more often. After many months of doing this I noticed a rash that was developing. I didn’t really think that it was the kava because I had been doing it for so long without a problem. I decided to quit anyways just to be sure. It didn’t go away so I started back again…but if I had only waited longer I could have saved myself a lot of frustration.