Kratom – a Solution for Opioid Addiction?

There is a public health crisis in America centered on opioid addiction. It is estimated that every year, some 300 million opiate pain pill prescriptions are handed out by doctors in the US every year, close to one script for every person living here. Despite what you see in the media, this affects older Americans too.

Pain pill addiction among older people

You don’t need to be young and stupid to become addicted to opiates. Earlier this year the Chicago Tribune reported, “A recent study found that in 2011, 15 percent of seniors were prescribed an opioid when they were discharged from the hospital; three months later, 42 percent were still taking the pain medicine.” This is why the opioid problem in America is as bad as it is – people of any age can end up hooked on opiates and the ‘dealers’ are our family doctors, not some dangerous guy down a back alley!

What is kratom?

Kratom is a herb found in South East Asian rainforests that has been used for thousands of years by indigenous Polynesians as a powerful anti-inflammatory and painkiller. The bush is related to the coffee plant that originated in Africa. Over the last decade, it has been increasingly popular to find kratom for sale on the Internet in the USA, Canada and Europe. Kratom has been shown by scientists and through the experience of thousands of opiate addicts to be very good at helping people come off their pain pill addiction. The active molecules of kratom are not opiates in their own right but are known as ‘opioid agonists’, or substances that bind to the nerve receptors of the brain without many of the effects of opiates.

Kratom and opiate withdrawal

Amidst the crisis affecting America, there is some good research out there that suggests you don’t have to go to your family doctor to get weaned off pain pills. You can instead, and relatively cheaply purchase kratom online and wean yourself off the pills yourself. One site advises, “If you can make it through the worst 3 – 5 days of opiate withdrawal, you can recover without relapsing. So if you need to use it as a non-prescription withdrawal supplement, make sure you only use it for 1 -2 weeks max”. As with many non-prescription medicines you need to work out what dose is good for you. You should test how you feel on one gram on an empty stomach and then build from there. If you are particularly frail then consider less as too much can leave you quite sleepy. The right dose however can give you a bit of a lift and enable you to live life as normally as before you got hooked on opiates in the first place. Kratom may well be one of a multi-pronged approach to tackle America’s opiate problem, for every kind of person from the young and stupid to those who are old enough to know better!