Kratom and Me

What I won’t tell you is that Kratom will work just as efficiently as prescribed medications. It has the potential to though.

I won’t tell you that it can’t be abused, yet I can assure you the abuse potential is low.

I won’t tell you dependency cannot occur, it can. I was dependent on my Spinal Cord Stimulator, too.

I won’t tell you Kratom is an opioid, yet I’ll agree it activates opioid receptors to provide analgesia at higher doses. Cheese does that, too.

I won’t tell you overdose isn’t possible, I can tell you it isn’t likely. We’d vomit it out before coming close to dying from it.

I won’t tell you that mixing it is okay, there have been a few deaths related to Kratom from poly use of prescribed and illicit substances. There’s been one possible, Kratom only death, yet to be determined.

I’ll always have compassion to any parent for the loss of a child in any capacity. I’ve been through this before when the mama’s lost their children to opioids. Grief always causes us to cast blame.

We have to be responsible for our own consumption and be accountable for our actions and that includes misuse and abuse.

I support and advocate for the Federal Kratom Consumer Protection Act Bills SB3039 and HB5905. The American Kratom Association would regulate safe Kratom supply and packaging would include dosing and serving size.

I don’t advocate for the extract versions as it would be easier to abuse or addict to, knowingly or unknowingly. People drink the entire tiny bottle when there’s 2-3 servings. Abuse can begin from the get go. I’m not entirely against them as they could be useful in certain situations. With responsible use, few and far between, extreme pain that would otherwise send a person to the hospital it would be worth it to me and I wouldn’t be cluttering an Emergency Room that most likely wouldn’t treat me anyway.

It’s imperative Kratom remains an option just as it is that opioids do.

It’s been nearly 8 years since my first suicide attempt and subsequent dismissal by my pain management physician of 12 years. I first began seeing him for my CRPS that was acquired by a work injury in January of 2001. He accepted me as a patient in 2004 and a permanent spinal cord stimulator was implanted later in 2006. I had a revision in 2009 due to lead migration and a second lead was added during the surgery.

I went on about my business in advocacy, had at least a dozen lumbar symptomatic nerve blocks, attended a Functional Restoration Program that my doctor also directed, attended FRP aftercare, and did my best to cope with pain.

Fast forward to 2016. It was Valentine’s Day and I was the Advocacy Director and Health Advisor to the International Pain Foundation. I was their Legislative Speaker for California and I attended or spoke in various legislation. I received 2 prestigious awards for my advocacy that year. I was a Medtronic Bakken Honoree and an iPain (International Pain Foundation) Hero of Hope. I call that year my rise and fall.

It was the year that the Opioid Recommendations would be implemented and doctors were already fed up. Mine was. He was also in the process of selling his practice at the time his assistant fired me when he was on vacation. I was in distress during that time, and it was winter. I always had a harder time then, bone and flesh pain is fire and ice. My legs feel freezer burned and it’s intense. Weight bearing feels like walking on shards of glass. The injury that caused my CRPS was a Mid Metatarsal Separation, also known as a Lisfranc fracture. I had underwent surgery for that a few months after the injuries in 2001.

I was meeting my Medtronic Rep there that same day. My Spinal Cord Stimulator was also causing me pain. I never got to the point of receiving an X-ray, I was abruptly fired but not in person, by letter, approximately a week later.

That same day though, I was trying to tell her, I’d been beaten in the psych ward of the hospital by personal who assumed I was “resisting” yet I was begging for my Spinal Cord Stimulator to be turned off. They had me on my back and restrained and my stimulator is not auto adjusting. That HURT! Anyone familiar would know this. No one cared. I was held on a 5150 for being a danger to myself.

During the year prior my medications and treatments were being denied or delayed by my Workers Compensation Carrier. I’d been in withdrawal off and on since January of 2015. Often, we hear about the opioid withdrawal, but hardly consider the abrupt discontinuation of other medications, such as Cymbalta, Gabapentin or Zonegran.

I’d been using BuTrans at the time of patient abandonment but it had been delayed again by the carrier and pharmacy. I recall pain being heightened badly. In a sense, it’s become a core memory of sorts, and in hindsight, I was in physical, mental and emotional distress simultaneously and was beaten down further, literally.

The doctors and mental health workers had falsely presumed I was an addict and physically beat me for it. To imagine today, that people with addictions are treated so poorly that they’d receive the same outlandish care that I did causes me anguish.

I have severe medical anxiety from their actions and any trust isn’t even obtainable anymore.

Eight months later I was selected to be a part of the Manual Ligament Therapy (MLT) study developed by Arik Gohl. The therapy was a life saver at the time and reduced physical pain while I was still in a state of severe mental distress as a result of untreated CRPS and spinal comorbidities and my body trying to adapt to the many years of medications no longer being in me. I’ll always be grateful as this therapy came along at a critical point in my life.

Kratom offers me a life preserver each day. It’s like a floatie or vest that keeps me above water, and from drowning. It’s a mask though, like any other medication that masks the symptoms and pain related to illnesses, it’s relieving, not a cure. Neither were any of the other medications including opioids I’ve taken for various pain related illnesses.

Other diagnosis’s include Levoscoliosis, Spondylosis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Lumbar and Cervical Stenosis, Degenerative Joint Disease, or Osteoarthritis, Fibromyalgia, Direct damage to specific nerves, and overactive nerves. Diverticulosis, Gastritis, Chronic Kidney Disease and Hemangiomas of the liver. Often referred to as fatty liver disease, multiple tangled blood vessels. I’ve had diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease and others, and not all have been treated. It can be difficult when illnesses overlap.

These last several years my mission has been to learn and utilize plant medicine in order to care for myself better and help others where other help isn’t available.

I won’t sugar coat any of it. Nothing is perfect and each individual will always vary. Kratom isn’t perfect for me and I still live with a great deal of pain yet I haven’t acted on any suicide attempts nor have I picked up alcohol to self medicate in five years.

I just want people to know that before you opt to end your life Kratom may help and for Law makers to know that to ban or schedule Kratom is to cause further grief and death to those who are benefiting. How can we forsake some for the actions or poor choices of others?

So many people who’ve experienced active addiction and substance use disorders have also been set free by this plant. Isn’t that what we pray for in regard to those we love?

No one comes to save us.

We must save ourselves.