Endometriosis and kratom seem to get along quite well. We see many women in the kratom community who are using kratom as a better pain reliever than opioid drugs — better in the sense that there are fewer, if any, side-effects: no need for the lethargy that usually comes with prescription opioid drugs, far less tendency for constipation, no need for add-on drugs to control depression and anxiety that often accompany chronic disease.
Often, these women also report that the quality of the pain control they get from kratom is better — without the feeling of being “high” that usually accompanies opiates. This is because kratom isn’t an opiate.
Kratom commonly replaces multiple prescription medications and helps an Endo sufferer be more functional, rather than bed-bound and tied to the heating pad for days.
Solving the Riddle of Endometriosis
Endometriosis is a puzzling condition when we try to determine what is causing it. There seem to be strong associations with pesticide, herbicide (especially Agent Orange), and similar chemical exposures — at least.
The main sources of dioxins are animal sourced foods: meat, milk, eggs, and fish. There are a number of potential industries where occupational exposures are possible, as well.
One Naturopath asserts that the condition is largely caused by the use of tampons, which prevent the normal excretion of the living endometrial tissues in the monthly process of menstruation. In an open survey taken among kratom consumers, this hypothesis was contradicted by some women who said their diagnosis occurred before they had ever used a tampon, as well as among those who had rarely or never used them.
As much as we would like to know what women could do to prevent this disease, perhaps we should content ourselves with applying general principles of good health and leave the medical theory to others. As you will see from the comments below, these women have found a more satisfactory pain reliever than what their doctors had prescribed them, so that is progress, at least.
What we do know is that the herb kratom works very well for reducing the inflammation, pain, and general discomfort caused by endometriosis. As with many other painful diseases, kratom can very effectively relieve pain without the mind-dulling sensation that chronic opioid drug use causes.
Author’s Note: I added the emphasis and cleaned up spelling, punctuation, etc., but otherwise, these are authentic conversations taken from Facebook.
Brandy: “I suffer with Endometriosis. I would be In such awful pain that I could not function, which — after awhile on pain pills — led to addiction. Kratom has saved my life!”
Sarah: “At 17 years old I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I have an extremely bad case of it. From age 17-23 years old I was having surgery about every 6 months to 1 year. I have tried EVERYTHING from different birth controls to two different rounds of lupron injections. I lived on pain medications until I found Kratom. Since starting Kratom it’s been TWO years and NO surgeries and NO pain meds! I feel great and pain free!!”
“Anyone with this also knows it can take your sex life and ruin marriages because of the pain. Since Kratom I have never felt better & have been able to regain my sex life back.”
“Also with my endometriosis I got a lot of ovarian cysts and had a few additional surgeries to remove large ones. I have not had ANY since Kratom!”
“My life before kratom was nothing short of miserable. I couldn’t keep up with my kids and being that uncomfortable everyday was no way to live. I also couldn’t keep up financially. Those surgeries are not cheap and every time you do surgery, the recovery process gets more painful. Also, with being so young every time they do surgery, it lowers my ability to have children because they can only go in and scrape it so many times. Basically my OB said I have to deal with it because I can not continue to have surgery every 6 months that’s just too hard on your body & eventually we will end up with severe consequences. I have done all the treatment options possible and although there is no cure, the ability to live pain free and function like I don’t have it has been a miracle!”
Author: Let me delve into the medical literature to see what I can learn. Probably the usual excuses: “There is no cure, we don’t know what causes it, it’s genetic…”
Sarah: “Yep, unfortunately that’s exactly what I am being told.”
Jennifer: “I really think infection may be at the root.”
Lorrie: “Endo rarely occurs in men, but it does happen. Usually when they’re on estrogen therapy for prostate cancer. I have mild endo and am estrogen dominant, meaning that while both my estrogen and progesterone are within “normal” ranges, they are not in the proper ratio to each other. I have too much estrogen for the amount of progesterone I make. And natural practitioners have blamed that for the endo, though I don’t know if any studies have proven that. Here’s a link.
Jena: “I’m and 30 yrs old no kids. I have had endometriosis since age of 16. I have had 3 surgeries and numerous procedures. The doctors would always prescribe me lortabs. I have been taking kratom for 3 years now. Since taking kratom my mood is better and I have more energy. Kratom helps me sleep and helps with my depression. With kratom my pain is manageable and I can do daily tasks. I’m back in school for nursing because of kratom. I still have pain some days but not even close to what it was without kratom. I’m also off pain pills. I’m so happy I found kratom for my pain. I was addicted to pain pills. Now I have my beloved Kratom. Kratom saved me!
If it wasn’t for kratom I would still be depressed, addicted to pain pills, and in a fog.
Jena: “Kratom seems to work better than lortabs. I took two percocets a few weeks ago and didn’t even touch the pain — didn’t even work.”
Hayley: Wish I knew about kratom when that was my hell on earth! Ablation got to save the day that time though but I still have interest in the replies you receive knowing there have to be happy campers so thanks for your interest!
Author: It is heartbreaking to think the medical establishment and some lawmakers would just as soon deny you hundreds of thousands of suffering women the relief of Kratom, while they <maybe> get around to finding a better treatment for this merciless condition.
Jena: “My last doc visit I felt like he didn’t believe me about the pain.”
Brandon: “My wife has endo and has used kratom a few times with good results. She ended up having surgery a year ago and hasn’t had many problems since.”
Brittany: “I have endometriosis. I feel a lot better since I have taken Kratom.”
Sarah: “They say birth controls, Lupron injections, & diet change can help. I have seen two very well known OB’s and none of those things helped. Birth control did nothing. Lupron did help but only by helping to push surgery off a few months and while I was on the injections for 6 months it was awful. It makes you feel like your in menopause you get all the same side affects and it was a miserable time.”
Sarah: “& VERY expensive the shots are over $1,000 and you need 6.”
Sally: “Been through the Lupron h*ll… Way before Kratom was on my radar. Just makes one miserable with symptoms returning as soon as the injections stop.”
Sarah: “Endometriosis also runs in my family my mom has it bad — but not as bad as I do. My doctor was completely shocked that I had it that bad at only 17. My mom has only need 2 surgeries her whole life where as I am 25 and I have had 7-8 already.
Jena: “Mine is worse than my mom’s too.”
Author: Was your father or grandfather in the Vietnam War? Scientists are finding the ingredients in Agent Orange, an herbicide that was sprayed there from airplanes, seems to be causing endometriosis and many birth defects in children and even grandchildren of the soldiers and especially the guys who worked on the planes and handled the herbicide.
Jena: “Yeah my mom & dad.”
Jena: “Yes sex hurts for me. I feel so bad for my boyfriend but he understands. I even have anxiety thinking about sex — it sucks!”
Jennafer: “Unfortunately I had a hysterectomy ages ago due to severe endometriosis that metastasized into cancer, I know if I had known about kratom back then, I’m positive it would have helped immensely. I use it now with great success to treat the pain and exhaustion from having chronic Lyme disease/neuroborelliosis. It’s a lifesaver for sure.
Jennafer: “Thank God I found kratom.. my doctor forced a prescription of Norco on me last week, I’ve told him I don’t want pain meds, but I’ve been flaring and herxing horribly due to having my amalgams removed and now I’ve got a severe cold on top of it. So much pain, I haven’t taken opiates in many many years except injections after surgery. I woke up two days ago, my dad picked up the Norco even though I told him I didn’t want it along with my Prilosec, Vitamin D and Zofran. I was so nauseous even after Zofran I didn’t want to try and toss and wash some and waste it, so I took the Norco. Two didn’t touch my pain, two more a little over an hour later, still pain level about seven to nine. Waited all day taking nothing, suffering, finally the Zofran kicked in, I took two teaspoons of red vein Bali Supreme and within a 45 minutes my pain went to level two or less, without the zombie effects the opiates give me. I’m so so grateful for this tree, this miraculous leaf. I was badly addicted to opiates, they had me on 200 milligrams of methadone a day ten years ago. Nothing has helped me as much as kratom has. I will fight to keep it legal everywhere and fight to have it legalized where it’s been banned.”
Jeri: “Endometriosis is HORRIBLE! I had the worst case my doctor had ever seen when I was younger. They gave me the Depo shot to try and stop my periods. Didn’t work. Pain was unbearable! I wish I had Kratom back then! It was scar tissue, from having my tubes tied. Endometriosis is ‘fed’ with every period, and grows everywhere! It was on my liver, gallbladder, stomach, lungs, and every organ in my body.”
Jennafer: “Omg, same exact thing with me. Had my tubes tied due to blocked tubes, after the first laparoscopy to remove all the endometriosis it came back twice as bad, attached to everything inside my abdomen, so horribly painful. They left one ovary in after my hysterectomy so I wouldn’t go into early menopause, and it grew back off that ovary and my bladder, the stuff just won’t go away.”
Sarah: “I was told my OB that it feeds off periods also but it implants in your body and can grow without a period. I have the IUD, didn’t have a period for two years, and mine still continued to get worse. Now my doctor said even if I have my female stuff taken it out ALL the endometriosis would have to be removed if they miss any and there is an implant it will continue to grow.”
Lorrie: No one in my recent bloodline (at least 2 generations) served (in the military). My first cousin also had endo (same maternal bloodline–her father did not serve, but idk about his father). Hers was much more severe than mine.
“Oh, I forgot until I saw a different comment. A different first cousin has PCOS. Again, same maternal bloodline as me, her father didn’t serve, not sure about his father.”
Sally: “One of the worst things I’ve ever dealt with especially as I had a young family to take care of when I really wanted to be on a heating pad and medicated almost every day- not just one week out of the month. This was way before Kratom was mainstream so I can’t speak to it’s effectiveness but it HAS to be better than the constant need for narcotic pain meds.
ETA- no history of parent exposed to agent orange but do have a sister with it. There is def a hereditary component, I think.”
Jennafer: “Mine would last ten days minimum. Ten days of twisting pain in my abdomen, bleeding so bad sometimes I thought I might bleed out. I actually passed out a few times. Went to the ER several times for that, and vomiting with fever so they would think toxic shock syndrome. I know it’s more severe in some than others, and I was pretty sad I couldn’t have kids, but I sure am glad I never have to deal with that again. Men can’t begin to imagine and women who can function on their periods are an enigma to me!”
Sally: “Oh, I had the ER visits also. They always thought I had a ovarian cyst rupture. It was horrible and I’m so sorry you endured it also. It is one of the silent diseases bc who goes around taking about their menstrual cycle? It was exhausting.”
Jennafer: “Yep, I had polycystic ovaries as well, many times they thought I had a rupture.. maybe I did, it’s so hard to tell. I’d miss school, everyone thought I was exaggerating, attention seeking, drug seeking. Finally my OB-Gyn did an exploratory laparoscopy. I woke up from the surgery with him standing next to me. He asked ‘how do you feel?’ I said ‘it hurts’ he said ‘I know, there was a lot wrong with you, hon.’ Gave me a shot and I passed back out. I woke up in my hospital room next with my mom standing at the end of the bed. I tried to sit up, I couldn’t. I said ‘I told you something was wrong’ and threw up everywhere. It was such a relief to be validated.”
Sally: “I remember my first laparoscopy also. I hear you on the “validation” part!”
Author: One of my Naturopathic Doctors suggests that Endo is commonly related to the use of tampons blocking the flow outward of the living endometrial tissue. What do you think of this, relative to your case? Could this be true?
Jennafer: “Very possibly. I used nothing but tampons from age 14 on up, that’s one reason I was taken to the ER several times with the doctors suspecting I had toxic shock syndrome. I think I heard back then too, the 80s, that wearing those skin tight painted on looking jeans you had to lay down and use pliers to pull the zipper up on could have had something to do with it as well.
Author: My Naturopath also suggested that gymnasts and those doing yoga where the lower body was inverted during the time of the periods could lead to endo.
Jen (an RN): “The tight clothing -> blood flow issue (or lymphatic system issue) is something that I have always wondered about in relation to pelvic congestion syndrome, personally, but it’s just a wild guess. We’re told about tight clothes and crossing our legs affecting varicose veins, so it seems logical that it would possibly cause similar issues in the pelvic region. Is there any correlation to endometriosis? I think we’d all love to know. We’re not that far removed from the era when women wore only dresses or skirts, for the most part, so…”
Sarah: “Never been a tampon user.”
Jennafer: “Never did gymnastics or yoga, but I was a ballerina. That inversion theory may be the similar to those skin tight jeans, something about the blood flow restricted by them?”
Jen: Pre-menarche girls have been found with endometriosis. I’m not sold on the tampon thing; my BFF never used tampons and was just full of endo when we were teenagers. Her uterus, bladder, and colon were all stuck together.
Sarah, replying to Jen: “Yeah, I have to agree because of my endeometrisis I have never used tampons for the simple fact of it being so painful.
“I have used them a few times but what I mean to say is never has it been a typical use for me.”
Lorrie: “My severely painful periods were already going on as a teen, before I started regular tampon use. In my early 20s, laparoscopy to remove a small spot of endo was successful, but the result only lasted 4 months before all symptoms returned. Dr agreed spot had probably regrown, but it has not gotten worse, and I have used tampons more and more as I’ve gotten older. So, no correlation for me.”
Author: It seems to me there must be some consistent thing that people are doing, for lack of knowing a better way, that is causing this widespread problem. Or, would those who had it in the past, just not have been able to pass on the gene(s)?
Lorrie: “Some of the women I know never had symptoms until they couldn’t get pregnant. And theirs was far worse than mine, though I was more symptomatic. That’s one of those weird things about endo. Amount of actual endo tissue is not necessarily related to symptom intensity. But endo-induced infertility would decrease the gene being passed on. Most of at least 3 generations of the women in my family (extended to my first cousins) have had painful enough periods to interfere with everyday life, but only 2 of us were dx’ed with endo and one with PCOS. One other had one ovarian cyst. So for us anyway, it seems to have a genetic basis, and only one of us really had fertility issues, so we could easily be passing a gene along.
“Unless, it’s diet related. We did all learn how to cook basically the same (or eat out, which was worse). Certain foods do increase estrogen production, which, as I mentioned before, potentially leads to the estrogen dominance (estrogen out of ratio with progesterone), which natural practitioners have blamed for my endo and other “female” problems. If I’m not mistaken, Jillian Michaels got into the fitness world by trying to cure/manage her PCOS, so that might point to poor diet/exercise habits.”
Author: After reading all these comments and doing some book research (especially from “Our Stolen Future“) about the increasing presence of endometriosis coinciding with the proliferation of synthetic chemicals like Dioxins, PCBs, and other estrogen-mimicking agents in our environment and our food, my guess is that these toxic chemicals deserve most of the blame for endometriosis.
Paul Kemp writes often about what he has discovered by trying to live a healthy, happy, and long life without much help from Medical Doctors. The many uses of herbs like Kratom are of special interest to him.
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