Amy Wike is a mother of two from Kansas. She goes by @MonnieLV2019 on Twitter. Amy suffers from chronic pain due to severe stress on her back from working for several years in a beef processing plant. After being cut off by her doctors from conventional opioid pain medicine, she discovered kratom.
Amy devotes her space on social media to the #3E‘s: #Educate #Enlighten #Encourage. She wants people to understand the issues that Chronic Pain Patients (#CPP) have to deal with in trying to receive proper healthcare.
KratomScience: Thanks for taking the time out to do this interview.
Amy Wike: Thank you for asking.
KS: Can you describe the situation you’re in that led you to try kratom?
AW: Yeah. I started taking kratom in 2017. But my chronic pain started back in roughly 2005. I worked for a beef factory here in town for about seven years, and I started developing really bad lower back problems. I’m a very short person, very small stature, so wearing heavy equipment and throwing sides of beef wasn’t really something I should have been doing. I was working harder than I was supposed to be. After a couple of years I started telling the company I needed to go see a doctor, told them what was going on. Basically down the line it ended up I was seeing about a dozen doctors through the company. None of them had any idea what was going on. They did X-rays, they did MRIs, they did pretty much every kind of test you could think of and nobody had an answer for me.
So in 2006, that was when I ended up stopping working there because the pain got so bad. They told me, “There’s nothing we can do for you. So we’re gonna give you a settlement, send you on your way, and hope for the best.” It was basically their way of cleaning their hands of everything that was going on with me.
KS: So the problems continued after that?
AW: Oh yeah. They continued and got a lot worse. They still do today.
KS: So that led you to take prescription pain medication?
AW: That’s right.
KS: Did you have a problem getting access to pain meds? We had a period where doctors over-prescribed it. As a response to the opioid crisis it’s now being under-prescribed so people who really need pain meds can’t get them.
AW: It was kinda touch and go from about 2013 to the time I was cut off. They would reassess everybody who was on them. So any time you went into the doctor’s office you’d stay there for about an hour. You would have a consult with the company from New York City or Kansas City or somewhere like that to re-evaluate why you were on that medicine. And they would ask, “What’s the problem? Has it gotten worse? Are you taking more medication? Have you tried stopping the medication and tried something else?”
It was pretty simple. Everything that the doctors threw at me medicinally, therapeutically, or otherwise, I tried it. So it wasn’t like, “Give me the pills. I need them right now or I’m gonna die.” I went through physical therapy. I did walking – I walked two miles a day for a little over a year to make the pain stop. Then one day my doctor switched me, and she said, “Here I’m gonna give you this [pain medication], but I’m going to a different position, so you’re gonna go to a different doctor.” And the first day he [the new doctor] says I’m gonna piss-test you. And I told him it’s gonna come up, only one [pain medication] is gonna come up [positive]. He said, Well whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. And a week later I was told I was being tapered.
KS: Were they gonna put you on suboxone or something like that?
AW: See that was the thing, I’d never heard about that until this last year. I was taking methadone at the time, I don’t remember how many milligrams, and hydrocodone. They had pulled me back from morphine-extended release and percoset, two pretty high ones, to those two. The only one of those that really did anything for me was the hydrocodone. Methadone didn’t touch my pain.
KS: So when did you discover kratom?
AW: November 2017.
KS: Do you use it in place of pain medication?
AW: Yeah.
KS: Does kratom work as good as pain medication for you?
AW: In my opinion, it works a lot better. For me on the pain medication, I felt drugged up 90% of the time. Even when I was taking less than what I was prescribed. You take it, and your body feels like you’re under enormous weight.
The first time I took kratom I took about 3 or 4 grams in a glass of tea. An hour later, I was up walking around. I didn’t feel doped up. It was straight-up pain relief, and I was like Holy crap! This stuff works. I was completely dumbfounded. I didn’t expect it to work.
KS: So since then you’ve been only taking kratom, and you don’t need anything else?
AW: Yeah. I came completely off all my pain medication. I had been tapered by that time. I do dabble in a few other herbs – not marijuana – but there are several other herbs that I do take for mood, energy, and kind of a boost to help the kratom last a little bit longer.
KS: What are those herbs?
AW: There’s ashwagandha , horse chestnut, coriolus… turmeric is a potentiator of kratom. There’s a whole laundry list of things that you can go online and start looking up. A lot of the communities on Facebook and Twitter talk about them.
KS: Are there strains of kratom you prefer?
AW: That’s kind of a difficult one to answer. I’ve gone through several different vendors over the last two years. One vendor will have Red Indo and you get another vendor that will have the same Red Indo but they are a completely different color, different effects. So I think it really depends on how it was processed, how it was dried, and the time that was put into getting it to that state.
Some people can take a white strain and it gives them lots of energy and they can get stuff done. A white puts me to sleep within a few minutes.
“They don’t care about who’s committing suicide and why. They just want to pull the pills out of the hands so they can show that they’re flexing. I would love to meet anybody within the FDA or the CDC who has anyone in their family or loved ones who happen to suffer from chronic pain.”
KS: Have you had any side effects with kratom at all?
AW: Yeah I’ve had mild constipation. I’ve had dehydration because I did not take the “drink water” part seriously for the first month or so. I paid dearly for that. Migraines are no fun. I’ve had to come off of it before. To me it’s not really that bad. My doses aren’t so high up that if I come off of it my body goes into shock. That’s not the way it is for me. My pain returns, and I’ve realized this is why I take it. My pain is really still there and the kratom really does what it’s supposed to do. So I have to take breaks every couple months, but as far as withdrawal or anything like that goes, it’s honestly not that severe compared to coming off pain meds.
KS: When you had to come off pain meds, did you go through some bad withdrawals?
AW: Yeah, it was horrible. The best way to describe that is, imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had. Imagine going down the highway at 50 mile an hour, jumping out of a car and just tumbling down the road. That’s how bad your body hurts coming off of any kind of opioid. It’s pretty bad coming off of those.
KS: Are you involved in kratom activism? Is there anything going on in Kansas with kratom laws?
AW: To my knowledge, knock on wood, it seems to be pretty quiet right now. Sheri Locascio lives about 40 miles North of me. She is really big activist. She goes out to the meetings. She was in Ohio. She’s really awesome at it. I’m better at doing the keyboard stuff, and talking through it like that. I’d like to be able to go to things like that and be active in it.
KS: Well it’s good that there’s nothing going on so far in Kansas.
AW: I’m praying, and if anything does come up, I’m gonna be right there to put my two cents’ worth in and talk to the people about it. Get them the education they need for it. Because there’s so much false information out there right now about it. People do really need to stop and read instead of just letting the FDA pull their strings.
KS: There’s a guy that you talk about on your Twitter feed, Andrew Kolodny. What is he doing to misinform the public about chronic pain and pain medication? There are a lot of misconceptions about chronic pain – that it’s all in your head, that it’s just addicts trying to get access to drugs. Explain why you disagree with them.
AW: He does not believe that chronic pain exists. He doesn’t think that people with chronic pain actually have chronic pain. Andrew Kolodny, Anna Lembke. Those two are both so close minded when it comes to the thought of someone being in pain all the time. For them, you get a headache, you take a Tylenol, you go to bed, and you’re fine. But with so many different kinds of chronic pain, autoimmune diseases, you get in a wreck, break your leg, something happens, and boom you’re stuck with chronic pain for the rest of your life. They don’t believe that actually exists. And when you go on Twitter and you type stuff in, all he has to do is block you or have his media people block you and he doesn’t have to listen to that. Both of those, Anna Lembke, Andrew Kolodny – they are not willing to listen to the fact that chronic pain exists and that there are millions of people who can successfully take opiates for years without becoming addicted to them and it does help them function daily. They are not willing to believe that.
KS: There’s a misconception that if someone takes any opiate they’ll automatically end up in the gutter with a needle sticking out of their arm. In fact most people who take any drug don’t become addicted to it. Do you think addiction is based on a mentality rather than the drug? And what’s the difference between a chronic pain patient who takes opiates and an addict?
AW: The biggest difference is, unless an addict has chronic pain, they won’t be able to put that needle down because they’re expecting that rush every single time. And when they don’t get it, they’re gonna go to a higher dose or a worse drug that does produce that. When it comes to a chronic pain patient, they come off of whatever it is that’s stopping their pain, their pain returns. Now people need to realize, that’s not the pain from withdrawal from the drug. That is the pain that they deal with every single day no matter what happens.
The one thing I want to add about myself is, addiction runs through my family. My mom and dad were both addicted to alcohol, not drugs. But I was able to successfully come off opiates after 10 years. Didn’t even think about it, I just thought, OK I’ve got to figure out a way to get this pain to stop. I stopped the pain pills, I went straight to kratom. I did not look back. I didn’t go out to the street and try to find someone who could get me something stronger. Because I knew that was not gonna be a good thing for me. So, I have it in my genes, in my genetic pool to be addicted to pretty much anything. But I made a choice, and it doesn’t make me any better or worse than anybody else out there, that I was gonna treat my chronic pain this way and be more productive about it. Addiction and dependence are two completely different things. Your body becomes dependent on the medication but you don’t necessarily want to have to have it, but you want and need that pain relief. Addicts don’t care, they just wanna feel that rush. I’ve known a lot of those too. It’s hard to say that without making them think I’m bashing them, because I’m really not.
KS: Why do you think they want to under-prescribe opiates now? Is the CDC or the FDA just cracking down on doctors?
AW: Right now I think it’s a suicide thing. I’m not trying to say they’re gonna kill us all. They want to take pills away from certain people who need them to survive day to day. They want to see who can handle it the best. If you take pills away from a hundred people, how many of those people are gonna go out and find something stronger? How many of those people are going to suffer through their pain and deal with it? And how many people are going to say, To hell with it, I’m done, I’m gonna blow my head off? They don’t care about who’s committing suicide and why. They just want to pull the pills out of the hands so they can show that they’re flexing. I would love to meet anybody within the FDA or the CDC who has anyone in their family or loved ones who happens to suffer from chronic pain.
KS: It’s kinda horrifying. And when you said “flexing” that reminded me of the ongoing attempt to ban flavored vapes. Scott Gottlieb was interviewed on CNBC and said in the same breath that flavored vapes needed to be banned, but in the places with bans, teenagers are now obtaining them illegally. So the ban created the black market. It seems things are safer when they’re out in the open. Do you support kratom regulation?
AW: Yes, absolutely. Most head shops, gas stations, backwater stuff like that.. I’ve bought from those before. I think I spent $40 on 30 capsules, and it said that it was “green maeng da”. So I took those, because I had no other way to get my kratom [at that time], but I just didn’t get as much out of it.
When finding a vendor, do your research. Make sure you know exactly when that company started, what their record is, what their lab results are, know that you can trust them. Talk to people online who you know are real, not bots. The more we allow adulterated crap, dirty stuff to get out there, the worse it’s gonna be for this community. We have got to keep this stuff pure and we’ve got to keep the people safe. I do firmly believe in that.
KS: It’d be nice if we had an FDA that did that job for the public instead of working for whoever is currently paying them money.
AW: Scott Gottlieb has a big mouth. I don’t like his opinions on kratom and I don’t like his opinions on vaping because he’s just there for the money. They kicked him out of the FDA so now he’s gonna go work for a private company…
KS: He’s on the board of Pfizer now, the drug company. All that stuff we were saying must have been a big conspiracy theory. He goes right to big pharma.
AW: Yeah let’s show the people that they’re right. And he knows exactly how many people’s lives he’s messing with.
KS: I don’t know how he sleeps at night.
AW: He doesn’t have a soul. It’s not hard to sleep at night when you have no soul.
KS: Right.
AW: If you’re in it for the money, you don’t care about who dies and who lives.
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Blechhh alcohol has never been my friend. It always makes me sick. We recently had to put down our 11yr old pom. Kratom is definitely helping my depression. I can’t take antidepressants due to all the side effects but no side effects from kratom aside from some constipation. I have nothing but good things to say about kratom!
Drink that water!!
Low dose opioids should be allowed by primary doctors with no urine tests at hundreds of dollars and monthly management visits at high cost. Low dose Percocet for example should be as common as Advil or prescription grade NSAIDS. Less body harm than NSAIDS and save your stomach and g.i. system.
Kratom may work good, but grown in some really poor areas with pollution galore. It should be made and sold out of a lab. Over the counter. CBD products are pure baloney.
Marijuana is a Loon med. Red eyes, silly,hungry.
No thanks.
Alcohol? A cleaning fluid sold at every grocery store….. big money for fermented plant liquid.
Dries you up and makes you stupid to enjoy watching sports and concerts. Big deal.
Tobacco and vaping worse than all! Lungs weren’t made to process chemicals.
The biggest scam of the last couple hundred years is the scheduling of all Opium products made in labs. They do what is required for many ailments. Abuse is a personal problem just like alcohol. But the powers that be can’t sell the Myth and Majesty of alcohol in tv shows, movies, and literature.
A simply manufactured pill that cures countless problems from pain to digestive quirks to mild depression doesn’t generate enough profits. But we can’t send the Devil packing. So, buy the ground up evergreen leaves from online profit centers. Even if there’s no way to check what’s all in that powder.
I too suffer from Celiac disease and suffer from headaches, and chronic Knee pain, but I too take kratom Pretty regularly, it also helps me with Seizures and Pnes Seizures I haven’t had any seizures in over a year because of Kratom
I’ve read other articles, but Amy makes me feel vindicated in how I feel about how they control our lives without a care, yet you know their selves and their loved ones aren’t being held to the same standards. My theory is besides culling the disability recipients who die from their bodies giving up, suicide, or bad black market drugs ( something many would never had done before) for social security, the powers that be have also made investments into pain medication futures. Let’s hope at least kratom is one of them.
It is very frustrating when we have people who cannot accept responsibility for their actions. If it almost ruined his life then he must have not checked his distributor’s info and test results or he simply abused Kratom. If that’s the case well he is still responsible for his actions. Would you just take a handful of pills if your Dr gave them to you? I think you might ask a few questions first. Like what is it, what are the side effects, where did you get these from? It would seem odd and in fact it is. Yet, people choose to not research what they put in their bodies. It’s common sense. Check you distributor’s info. Never just ingest something without know everything about it. If Kratom was an addiction issue it’s possible that your brother would have addiction issues with other things as well. Kratom doesn’t have the power to ruin anyone’s life. The person holds that power. (JS)
Testimony
I suffer from 6 herniated disk and have minor scoliosis. I was on Percocet’s use to go to pain management every month. I started to abuse the pain medication I was prescribed 10mg every 8hrs but than started taking 2 10mg Percocet’s every 8 hrs. I realize I had to stop not to mention it slow my heart and breathing down as well. A friend Recommended Kratom and I’ve been using it for a year now. No side effects I can actually function go to the gym,run do my normal daily routine. I’m not depressed anymore my mood is at a better level. Kratom for me is s life changer. I want to exercise my right and use a natural plant that helps people and myself to live without having to worry about pain or limitations..
I am thankful for this story. I have been on kratom for six years now , for a chronic neurological disorder, to which there were no medications for me to take. It saved my quality of life. I only need two doses a day and it keeps me active and out of pain, relatively. I also have frequent blood tests done for my condition and never once has my blood changed because of kratom, I continue to still have normal levels for everything. I understand, there are people who can take things too far, but there are also people that kratom has truly helped and like this author, I will try to continue to put good things out about it as well. Thank you for sharing your story. Peace.
Iv suffered with depression most of my life. I was suicidal for years. Drs have prescribed me several medications that worked but only about 50%. I eventually became an addict to alcohol and drugs even to the point of injecting. I’ve been in and out of the program so I hesitated using Kratom but my depression was overtaking me again so I tried it. It worked completely. Ieven liked going to work. It was hard to drink. My conscience was getting to me because of the program and then I started seeing the bad reviews so I stopped using Kratom. I had no withdrawals like with other drugs I used. When I saw this review I decided to investigate and hopeful. I am using Kratom again and doing very well. Thanks to this article. Thank you thank you. Denise
IDUB, your brother ruined his own life. Not kratom, it’s people like you. Who know nothing about kratom, and because, your brother. Lied to you about what he was taking. Blame kratom, did you have your brother. Do a drug test, too see what else he was taking? I’ve been on kratom for 6 yrs. No problems at all, but I dont do, cocaine, pot, or take other people’s Prescription drugs either.
I’ve been taking kratom for several months now for pain after knee surgery. It has been a better med for pain relief than norco and oxytocin. The only side effects is mild constipation. Its really been a life saver for me.
Kratom almost ruined my brother’s life. I am so sick and tired of the argument that just because something is natural, it must be good for you. Stop lying to people. There’s a reason Kratom hasn’t been approved by the FDA. Its addictive properties are awful
There’s a lot of things that can ruin a person’s life, that doesn’t make it a bad thing. Mass transportation kills thousands every year, some from accident, some from sheer individual stupidity, but it’s a good and necessary thing. People die from peanut allergies… I’m allergic to Benadryl of all things. Then there’s individual responsibility… I know countless people who’ve ruined their lives…
Loser
I’m sorry about your brother, I really am. He died from a drug overdoes from poly drug abuse. Kratom does not lower respirations which causes most deaths.
As for the FDA, they are in bed with the drug companies, do a little research. They have approved more medications which cause death and injury. Take a look at the adverse drug reports.
Unadulterated Kratom has helped me immensely. Support the AKA, read the scientific research, talk to folks this leaf has helped.
Again I am truly saddened for the loss of your brother and would never wish that on anyone.
I’m so glad there are people out there like the author! 💓
I’ve seen kratom save countless lives, and I’ve seen alcohol destroy hundreds of lives. But no one ever talks about alcohol.
So true. Many legal substances kill thousands every year. Big pharma can’t make a nickel from Kratom so it has to be banned.
Absolutely Alcohol kills so much more. Try to get help they lock you up in a mental insitution. Kratum has saved my son so those against its all natural better start taking all natural organics out of everywhere. I am an addict in recovery and my son has s broke back i would rather him on kratum than anything else. We better give up food and dugar its addicting. Kratum helps people everyone else take a back seat let the ones in pain and hurting get natural relief. There are even more worse things out there i know.