There"s Medicinal Herbs and Then There"s Kratom For Pain
My wife Lee and I live on the edge of America's 2nd oldest National Park and it's the only one that runs right through the downtown area. While so many rushed to the outer suburbs, we settled in the gorgeous historic district of Hot Springs, Ar. I look out my home-office window at one of the tallest and most beautiful mountains on the south side of the state. Our home is cradled in the epicenter of the Ouachita Mountains. It is amazing to see the falcons dive in to the trees for a feast or huge white-tail deer munching on flowers or leaves.
Exotic wildflowers paint the forest floor and just as exotic birds fly in the Arkansas blue skies, a blue like no other blue we've ever seen. My wife is an amazingly talented artist and nature/wildlife photographer, so mountain hiking is a part of her job. My job is to tag along. At best, I gave myself that position. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
What is amazing, and if I don't write about it every so often, it is easy to forget, or take it for granted. I have experienced a great deal of pain in my adulthood. I was very active in my youth and young adulthood. I ran two marathons, taught martial arts, flew airplanes, etc.
Time passed and in my 30s and 40s I learned I was not invincible. Joints began to hurt. Muscles got sore. I tore muscles. I had two heart attacks in my 40s; major ones. I somehow lived, but the quality of life was so dismal, I wondered at times if it was worth it. I was able to cope with the heart issues after 3 surgeries and a total chance to a vegan lifestyle, but along with neuralgia that settled mostly in my gums the very act of swallowing at times could be torture.
The best I could do to take some edge off the brutal never-ending pain was a prescription of 200mg of Tramadol per day. And that only worked for a few weeks, and after that it worked, but barely better than aspirin. I tried numbing agents. I tried dentures. I tried it allâEUR¦except for Kratom. And I'd only not tried kratom because I had never heard of it.
Thanks to the Internet stories finally crossed my monitor. But they looked scary. How could a plant this dangerous be legal in 49 states? I decided it was time to research, as I'd learned in college about the demonization of marijuana in the 1930s and how it became "a drug" when it is only a medicinal plant, and how the government and Big Pharma led us to believe it as "deadly dangerous", all the while they held the patent (still do) because it "protects the brain".
I don't compare kratom to pot, only the government and heavy advertiser Big Pharma manipulating the media into writing horror stories about kratom.
But if one does their research carefully, they will learn that kratom is a natural analgesic (a strong one) in the coffee family; a bit less dangerous than coffee, nobody has ever reportedly died from kratom nor has anyone ever overdosed.
So why all the demonizing? Though kratom has been used in S.E. Asia for over 1000 years for everything from pain to depression and anxiety, diabetes 2, and a cancer preventative, America doesn't know a lot about it. It arrived on our continent about the same time dangerous man-made spice, K2, synthetic marijuana and other chemicals that really are drugs did. So the media simply lumped them altogether. Two states banned kratom.
One was Indiana but it changed its mind several months later after realizing what an egregious mistake it had made. Kratom is a benign yet powerful medicinal plant that is ideal as an alternative to numerous dangerous drugs that doctors readily prescribe.
It did nothing less than gave me my life back. After my 2nd major heart attack, it was a chore to make it from the bedroom to the kitchen. Sometimes I was in so much pain I couldn't even lay in bed.
After finding kratom I built my business 10fold. I'd returned to school at age 47 and learned how to run a business on the Internet. I hike 5-10 miles in the mountains with my wife each day. As a cartoonist my creative output as quadrupled. I have no side effects from kratom (keep in mind I use straight-leaf kratom). I cannot speak pro or con for kratom extract because it is not what I use. I've never had a hallucination nor experienced any euphoria.
For anyone seeking out kratom for recreational use, I'm afraid they may be in for a bit of a disappointment. Kratom is evolving into the #1 effective alternative for pain relief. Your typical kratom user may not be who you think.
He/she is not laying in an alley drinking wine from a paper bag. He/she is more likely your doctor, neighborhood police officer, CPA, accountant, Realtor, veterinarian and many others. Those are simply some I've met who, for the same reason as me, don't want to spend the rest of their lives under the influence of opiate medicine, but wants a safe plant that basically cuts the pain to the point that we can cope.
People often warn me, "But Rick, kratom is an opiate?" I respond, "Oh really? Where did you learn that?" They often answer numerous media outlets who have produced or published "fear-based segments". Kratom does attach to opiate receptors of the brain. Whooaa. Then Rick, STOP! But did you know that so does cheese, coffee, dark cholocate, and most fatty foods? That doesn't make kratom an opiate any more than cheese is a motorcycle.
A lot of foods and plants "behave like opiates" by attaching to our opiate receptors. Meanwhile 200,000 Americans die annually from real opiates from prescriptions written by their doctors. It's time to be serious about keeping kratom legal. It is not a designer drug (unless one considers God a designer). It is merely another miracle offered up by Mother Nature.
Buying kratom can be a bit tricky. I tried 12 or so vendors before finding a few that truly sells quality kratom leaf is GreenLeafKratom.com. It is a very reliable friendly place and I give it my endorsement.
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Exotic wildflowers paint the forest floor and just as exotic birds fly in the Arkansas blue skies, a blue like no other blue we've ever seen. My wife is an amazingly talented artist and nature/wildlife photographer, so mountain hiking is a part of her job. My job is to tag along. At best, I gave myself that position. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
What is amazing, and if I don't write about it every so often, it is easy to forget, or take it for granted. I have experienced a great deal of pain in my adulthood. I was very active in my youth and young adulthood. I ran two marathons, taught martial arts, flew airplanes, etc.
Time passed and in my 30s and 40s I learned I was not invincible. Joints began to hurt. Muscles got sore. I tore muscles. I had two heart attacks in my 40s; major ones. I somehow lived, but the quality of life was so dismal, I wondered at times if it was worth it. I was able to cope with the heart issues after 3 surgeries and a total chance to a vegan lifestyle, but along with neuralgia that settled mostly in my gums the very act of swallowing at times could be torture.
The best I could do to take some edge off the brutal never-ending pain was a prescription of 200mg of Tramadol per day. And that only worked for a few weeks, and after that it worked, but barely better than aspirin. I tried numbing agents. I tried dentures. I tried it allâEUR¦except for Kratom. And I'd only not tried kratom because I had never heard of it.
Thanks to the Internet stories finally crossed my monitor. But they looked scary. How could a plant this dangerous be legal in 49 states? I decided it was time to research, as I'd learned in college about the demonization of marijuana in the 1930s and how it became "a drug" when it is only a medicinal plant, and how the government and Big Pharma led us to believe it as "deadly dangerous", all the while they held the patent (still do) because it "protects the brain".
I don't compare kratom to pot, only the government and heavy advertiser Big Pharma manipulating the media into writing horror stories about kratom.
But if one does their research carefully, they will learn that kratom is a natural analgesic (a strong one) in the coffee family; a bit less dangerous than coffee, nobody has ever reportedly died from kratom nor has anyone ever overdosed.
So why all the demonizing? Though kratom has been used in S.E. Asia for over 1000 years for everything from pain to depression and anxiety, diabetes 2, and a cancer preventative, America doesn't know a lot about it. It arrived on our continent about the same time dangerous man-made spice, K2, synthetic marijuana and other chemicals that really are drugs did. So the media simply lumped them altogether. Two states banned kratom.
One was Indiana but it changed its mind several months later after realizing what an egregious mistake it had made. Kratom is a benign yet powerful medicinal plant that is ideal as an alternative to numerous dangerous drugs that doctors readily prescribe.
It did nothing less than gave me my life back. After my 2nd major heart attack, it was a chore to make it from the bedroom to the kitchen. Sometimes I was in so much pain I couldn't even lay in bed.
After finding kratom I built my business 10fold. I'd returned to school at age 47 and learned how to run a business on the Internet. I hike 5-10 miles in the mountains with my wife each day. As a cartoonist my creative output as quadrupled. I have no side effects from kratom (keep in mind I use straight-leaf kratom). I cannot speak pro or con for kratom extract because it is not what I use. I've never had a hallucination nor experienced any euphoria.
For anyone seeking out kratom for recreational use, I'm afraid they may be in for a bit of a disappointment. Kratom is evolving into the #1 effective alternative for pain relief. Your typical kratom user may not be who you think.
He/she is not laying in an alley drinking wine from a paper bag. He/she is more likely your doctor, neighborhood police officer, CPA, accountant, Realtor, veterinarian and many others. Those are simply some I've met who, for the same reason as me, don't want to spend the rest of their lives under the influence of opiate medicine, but wants a safe plant that basically cuts the pain to the point that we can cope.
People often warn me, "But Rick, kratom is an opiate?" I respond, "Oh really? Where did you learn that?" They often answer numerous media outlets who have produced or published "fear-based segments". Kratom does attach to opiate receptors of the brain. Whooaa. Then Rick, STOP! But did you know that so does cheese, coffee, dark cholocate, and most fatty foods? That doesn't make kratom an opiate any more than cheese is a motorcycle.
A lot of foods and plants "behave like opiates" by attaching to our opiate receptors. Meanwhile 200,000 Americans die annually from real opiates from prescriptions written by their doctors. It's time to be serious about keeping kratom legal. It is not a designer drug (unless one considers God a designer). It is merely another miracle offered up by Mother Nature.
Buying kratom can be a bit tricky. I tried 12 or so vendors before finding a few that truly sells quality kratom leaf is GreenLeafKratom.com. It is a very reliable friendly place and I give it my endorsement.
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