I was about fifty years old and in a transitional phase of retirement when I relocated to a tranquil tourist and retirement town in the mountains of Arkansas. I continued to try my hand at cartooning and design, but I became much more interested in fishing and tennis instead. I had spent the early half of my life doing a lot of different things, ranging from skydiving to teaching martial arts to running marathons, and pretty much everything in between. Despite the fact that I had been a victim of several terrible incidents when I was younger, I recovered from them quite quickly and did not suffer any significant aftereffects. Consequently, when I took the significant decision to slow down and learn how to appreciate life, I was in for quite a bit of a surprise. Those first few years were remarkably devoid of discomfort. I did have a few little aches and pains here and there, but they were nothing to get worked up about and were deemed to be “normal” for someone my age. My life changed forever when I had a massive heart attack when I was 49 years old. This came as a bit of a surprise to me since despite the fact that I had stopped jogging long distances and had ultimately given up running completely owing to knee and leg issues that did not affect me before I arrived here but began to trouble me after I got here, this news still came as a surprise. Since I was already in the mountains, I reasoned that mountain walking or trekking may be a suitable alternative. I was quite strict with my lifestyle, which included eating a wide variety of delicious and nutritious meals (or so I thought). I decided to conduct some research on the internet after those so-called “good healthy meals” triggered a second big heart attack in me, which was the one that was dangerously near to taking my life. My wife had already transitioned from her “excellent healthy diet” to a vegetarian and then a vegan lifestyle, and then she took it one step further and adopted a lifestyle that was 90 percent raw vegan. I made the decision to imitate her, and in a little over a year, I was mountain climbing and trekking with her. This is quite a change from the previous year, when I could not walk across the living room. However, something else was going on that made it difficult for me to live my life and go hiking, and none of the dentists or physicians I went to appeared to know how to fix the problems. I had acquired tennis elbow (tendonitis), which is something that most people don’t think of as a severe pain problem, as well as a gum condition (not to mention teeth going bad), but the gum disorder (most likely neuralgia) was so excruciating that I could scarcely chew. My visits to the occupational therapist consisted of three sessions per week of therapy that lasted anywhere from three months to five months in total. That didn’t even come close to cutting it for me. I needed continuous relief, but I didn’t want to have to make a trip across town every other day to sit still for an hour while a stranger rubbed cortisone crème and some type of electrons into my arm. This was the alternative to getting a cortisone injection, which supposedly would have been more effective but I can’t stand the side effects of cortisone thus I had to go with this instead. Around the same time, we learned about the contamination of a large quantity of cortisone in the office of a major pharmaceutical company via the press. No, thank you very much for your inquiry. At the age of 56, I was in so much pain as a result of injuries that occurred earlier in my life, later life jogging, crestor, and a variety of other ailments that the only choices available to me were pain medications. I am unable to use the vast majority of pain medications because of the adverse effects they induce, and the others are ineffective (at least not after about 5-10 days). My city does not have any pain management clinics, but if there were any, I’m sure they’d prescribe me a fenatyl morphine patch if they could. Again, thank you very much, but I must decline. Consequently, I began looking into alternative treatments, including naturopathic medicine, which involves the use of medicinal herbs and plants. I was aware from personal experience (in the late 1970s, I was the owner of a health food business) that the most of them are just marketing gimmicks and don’t even come close to doing what the testimonials say they can (and sometimes even scientific research claims they do). However, I was also aware that the handful that do work as mentioned do not have the potentially fatal or near-fatal side effects that are so terrible that advertisements for these medications on television have to use upbeat music in the background in the hopes that viewers won’t notice. I tried skullcap and an organic kind of legal cannabis (the kind that young people use for partying), but both made my head feel cloudy, and neither was any more effective at easing the pain than aspirin. I was eventually able to locate one of those that I’d heard about, and it’s called kratom. not only were there testimonies, but also the scientific evidence was there. It is nothing more than an organic leaf from a tree that grows in Southeast Asia in the same abundant manner as pines do in the southern hemisphere. Even while Thailand and Malaysia, two countries in which it is especially prevalent, made the decision to prohibit it in the middle of the 20th century, they did so only because it was cutting into the profits they made from their opium traffic (opium trade was legal there then). However, even at that time, the rules were seldom, if ever, followed, and there is not a single city, town, or hamlet in the whole of Malaysia that does not contain at least one “kratom shop” that is quite similar to our starbucks. In a humorous twist, kratom is a first cousin once removed of coffee, but it’s a lot better for you. If one can get beyond all of the “fear articles” that are written about it on the internet, they will discover that it reduces blood pressure, enhances the immune system, strengthens the heart, and many other benefits. It is not kratom itself that is highly habit forming; nonetheless, it has the potential to do so (about like stopping coffee as far as withdrawals go). When vendors produce a significantly stronger form of kratom and offer it under the name “kratom extract,” they are not actually selling kratom; rather, they are selling something that resembles a narcotic and is around 15 times more potent than ordinary kratom. I stay away from the extracts, and using the organic leaf in its purest form has caused me no issues whatsoever. Most significantly, its analgesic benefits are every bit as powerful as the strongest oxy medications, but without the hazy head, side effects, addiction, etc. that come along with them. Why on earth would anybody use pain medication in this day and age when kratom is not only legal (anywhere in the u.s. except for indiana), but it is also safer and better for the immune system? It’s not always the case, but there are occasions when medical professionals get it wrong. When they prescribe hydrocodone or anything even more strong and deadly, it is not because physicians want to cause damage to their patients; on the contrary, they are well aware of the potential consequences of their actions. It’s not because they aren’t “informed,” but rather that the drug seller is the one who does the majority of the work, and kratom is not the “best buddy of big pharma.” Given the fact that so many individuals have relied on it to wean themselves off of drugs and alcohol, you can probably guess that it takes money out of their own pockets (such as their opium-based ones). rick london is a singer, cartoonist, and novelist in addition to being a designer. He established the oddball cartoons and hilarious presents website that is now rated first on Google. According to him, the kratom sold at kratom k is the purest available. When he goes to check out, he enters the word “twitter” into the space provided for the coupon code, and as a result, he receives an additional discount of ten percent off the already affordable price.
Author
jackemails@gmail.com