My ex introduced me to the world of Kratom and i wonder if anyone else that is battling PSA has been using it.
I was diagnosed with PSA 3 years ago and after losing my insurance about 1 1/2 years ago I lost access to the Humeria that was really working wonders in controlling my PSA symptoms.
My ex is using Kratom to control her Fibromyalgia pain and suggested I see if it would work on my joint pain that flu like feeling you get when in a flare. Docs wanted to put me on opiates, I said no way.
Its a wonderful natural plant! If I take it just when the pain gets almost unbearable in less than 30 minutes i feel the result. I can feel a warmth in the joints and then the pain just goes away without any of the opioid side effects.
Has anybody on here tried it? If you did how did it work for you?
Just because something is natural doesn’t make it safe.
I would be wary of using this plant. As far as I understand it it has traits that should be considered serious. I think it has similar channels like an opioid and it would probably be better for something of that nature to be handled by a licensed professional and approved by the FDA. Plants can be quite dangerous even if they are “natural”. There is no free lunch rule in the medicine world. For instance, mushrooms are natural. However, I do not go eating or picking every mushroom. Some are poisonous and can shut down your organs. My grandma poisoned herself and my mother because she was older and was loosing some of her wits and picked some poison mushrooms. It looked similar and even grew in similar areas. It was natural but it was dangerous.
So I have discussed this with my rheumatologist and his exact words were: if it’s helping your pain then don’t stop. I have found that after roughly six months of on and off use that I have had zero increase in tolerance to it, I have had no ill effects when I don’t take it and that as long as I buy from a source that uses trees from growers here in the USA that the quality is very high.
Even my PCP agrees that even though much more research needs to be done on kratom his patients that are using it are finally finding pain relief without going to stronger synthetic opiates with the coresponding high prices.
It is good that your doctors know and have issued their judgments. My point is to be careful and the concern arises from the lack of data. I would not feel comfortable referring such a thing without a stamp of approval from a doctor. I cannot argue that it does not help you. Maybe in the future there will be studies done and the knowledge gap becomes less. I hear you on drug prices. I can hardly afford the standard meds for health stuff and when you throw in some specialty or exotic drugs it becomes far worse. Med. prices are outrageous and it bothers me that some of these drug makers have a monopoly on certain drugs and no direct competition for drugs discovered in the 20th century. It is crazy. It is called cornering the market.
I have been taking 7 grams of kratom about 3 or 4 times a day for the past three years. It has been a huge benefit to me in dealing with fibromyalgia and psoriatic arthritis. In the beginning, one dose of kratom would relieve my pain for a whole day; now I find my pain returns at about 5 hours (that’s where it has plateaued), so your body does adapt to it. It is very safe, non-addictive (if you stop taking it, no cravings, just your pain returns), with no significant negative side effects. I get a blood test every six months, and my blood work has been fine. I studied kratom for about 6 months before deciding to give it a try; I am so glad I did. I would be far less functional without it. I was using it before I started seeing a rheumatologist; on my first visit, I let him know all the things I take (meds and supplements) including kratom; he was not aware of kratom, but said that if it was helping, I should continue to take it. Kratom gets its pain relief by affecting the opiate receptors, but unlike traditional opiates, it does not depress the user’s breathing. That’s why people don’t die from taking too much kratom (it’ll just make you nauseous), but many people die from overdoses of morphine, heroin, and fentanyl.
I’ve moved this discussion into complementary therapies. Kratom is NOT a medication, and there is no research supporting it’s use. The truth of the matter is, that if a person is using any type of pain killer, it means that there is a problem. Their disease control is likely poor, and if the pain is controlled by some sort of pain med, why bother trying for actual disease control? In other words, pain killers are not used by most rheumatologists for a reason. This is a supplement that is unregulated, and that needs to be clearly understood. If it’s being used for pain control, that means that the disease isn’t under control.
@stoney I really appreciate your input and sound approach to bringing some of these experiential alternative remedies to a proper light. A few people might benefit from some of the natural or holistic approaches and I can’t take away from their experience. But we know so little about anyone’s lifestyle, history, combination of prescribed or other meds…it would be unwise to run out and try things based on a few testimonials on this site…and it’s great that you give the input that you do. Thanks for watching out for all of us!
In about three weeks I will have been on MTX 25 mg, Sulfasalazine 2000mg and 5 mg daily prednisone for 3 months strait. (I previously quit tg he sulfasalazine due to mouth sores) Covid has really slowed down access to professional (rheumatologists) hands on care and the economic issues will likely put a huge strain of our health care system. I think we are in for a lot of cut backs including which meds will be covered. I won’t know until late June if I will finally get on biologics. The prednisone certainly helps lesson the fatigue but none of the above seem to be helping the foot pain, foot cramping and knee pain. But who knows? Perhaps the combo of dmards will kick in soon! Be well!
@Amos, that is a beautifully put thankyou to @Stoney, seconded.
It does sound like you are ready to move on to something new regarding your meds - 3 months is a good trial and it sounds like they are not working as well as you’d want (and possibly not very much).
I’m hopeful they’ll keep subsidising the biologics here - I know they are expensive but the cost of a person being Significantly disabled versus just mildly would have to be pretty big too. I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, we can buy toilet paper again 