Ep 71: From Desperation to Relief: Stacy Wismer on the Power of Kratom

0:00 I've got to 3G and I noticed I'm like, OK, that's that is something like from head to toe. My pain got better. I mean, I had really bad, you know, the bladder pain and the sacral pain and the nerve pain was just excruciating. And that went from an 8 to a two, I would say 8 to a 2. And I was like, and I used to be a big runner and I was like, I feel like I'm going to run. And my husband's like slow it down. You know, you just took this at your, this is a little just let's adjust. So I kind of stayed with the greens and Reds and I went up to eventually about a 3 1/2 Grants. So I'm here with Stacy Wismer, A fellow kratom consumer, eager to hear her story and have her share it with you all. So Stacy, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I, I just love doing this.

1:07 You know, this is something I'm just very passionate about and I think it's important for people to hear our stories. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so tell us a little bit about yourself and life before kratom. OK, well I was born in Michigan. I'm from like a little outside Ann Arbor, MI and where University of Michigan is. My parents divorced when I was young so I then I my parents remarried. I moved around about 13 times. Wasn't in the army, I just happened to move around a lot. Only child. As a child I've always was really sickly. I had just odd things all the time.

1:49 I was happy, but I just always had really odd sicknesses and you know, I just kind of blew through them. Didn't even think anything about it. When I got into college, I was, I think part of it was I started, I started drinking a lot to cover up some of my symptoms. Cannabis didn't do it for me. It didn't cover anything up. I mean, I just had no good reaction to it. So I would just drink a lot. It would cover up a lot of my symptoms of pain. Just weird things that were happening that no one could figure out. But it wasn't constant. It was just here and there. I started dating my husband my freshman year of college and we had a pretty good, I had a pretty good four years of decent health, just weird little blips on the radar. And I'd say probably when I was 22, I started having really horrible pain in my bladder.

2:53 But I had had this kind of in the past and I thought it was a urinary tract infection. And so of course, you drink cranberry juice that doesn't do anything. And then it just got worse and worse and worse. So I went to like every doctor. This is back in, gosh, 1998. I went to every doctor you could think of and they just didn't know what I had. They just said you don't have an infection. But the pain and I was at this point I was bleeding just pure blood when I would go pee and I was, it was just excruciating. And I just gotten engaged and I was getting ready to start a job and I was thinking I can, I can't do this. I don't, I don't know what's going on. I'm 22 years old.

3:38 And so I started, I went to a urologist and they said, well, you might have something called IC interstitial cystitis, but we don't really know what it is. We don't know what what has caused. We don't know really what's going to go on. And I said, well, OK, is there a specialist in this? So I finally found a specialist, which is very rare in 1998. And I went to Beaumont, which is in Royal Oak in Michigan. And probably one of the top guys that is the the IC specialist. I still see him today and he's he did a bunch of tests. You have to have a camera go in and look at your bladder and basically what it is, is you have open ulcers in your bladder.

4:22 The what your bladder lining has worn away and you just have these open ulcers that are in your bladder that we don't know why they're there. So it's not infection, you just have ulcers in your bladder. So I had a choice at that time to start medication, to build a fake lining in my bladder, start pain medication, which I had to at that time. I had to do something in until I could heal up the ulcers and then change my diet completely. So it's called an IC diet. And at that point I had been drinking a lot in my life and I had to absolutely cold Turkey, cut out alcohol.

5:02 Like right away it was just cold Turkey. No alcohol, no caffeine, no nothing acidic. So my life became bland. Mashed potatoes, macaroni, I mean, anything that was the most bland food you could ever, ever want to to eat. That's what I had to eat. Water and milk, that's all I could eat. And that went on for about a year and I got better. We moved to Colorado and I thought, oh, I'm, I'm going to have a mixed drink one night. I'm better. Threw myself right back into it again and I said I can't do this anymore, I have to stick to my diet.

5:43 In between this I was taking pain medication and in those days they gave you whatever they were trying to give me methadone, they were trying to give me all sorts of stuff. And I think at that time I was just going to take, I was probably 89 lbs soap and wet. So I think I would take like 1/2 a Percocet just to get me by for like a month, like a day. And then I get better. And then I'd stick to my IC diet. And that kind of went on for I would say like 10 years. And then I got pregnant with my daughter and I went into remission, which is very common when you're pregnant with IC. And this is kind of where my health, it's like something about pregnancy just brings out stuff and your body had a healthy pregnancy, had her and I, I, I just lost too much blood.

6:37 I had an emergency C-section. I ended up having postpartum psychosis. I ended up getting seizures from that, from something, it was something with the spinal damage from the Spinal Tap. It was a mess. So that started on my severe depression kick. So then I have IC and depression, which the IC was still kind of in remission a little bit. And so then that started my journey with living with IC and then deep, deep depression, which I'd never had ever. And then I would say I waited. I had to wait five years to get pregnant again with Griffin because I was not well. I was just not well. And I maybe had one or two episodes where I had to go back on some pain medication in between them. But it wasn't a big deal.

7:26 I didn't have to do it for long. And then I had Griffin had a actually a really great pregnancy. Everything went well, still in remission. And then I would say maybe about 2018, I started feeling like I was sitting on a rock, like something was in my pelvic area. And I'm like, this is just bizarre. Do I have a pelvic infection? Do I have a, do I have cancer? Like what's going on went to every doctor you could think of at this point. I'm used to doctors. I'm used. I, I can, I will push, I will push and push and push and I will go to every doctor until I get what I want. Because I have been doing this since I was 22 and I finally my gynecologist is like, let's give you a pelvic floor MRI and everybody else was giving me MRI is up. So they went lumbar up and this one was lumbar to your tailbone. And right away a big cyst in my sacrum popped up. It was a big on my S3 and it was pretty big. And they're like, well, that's a Tarloff cyst. They're like, usually these are asymptomatic. And I said, well, I'm telling you, I have pain. And it felt like I was sitting in Iraq and I had horrible pain in my like, lower sacrum and my left part of my butt. And it was to the point where I could barely walk now. And then also my urine would

8:57 just trickle out, just trickle out. And I was like, this is crazy. Like, what's going on? So I looked up Tarlov, cyst specialist, and number one was Doctor Frank Feigenbaum in Dallas. So I called him and I said, can I fly? I mean, I barely could drive at this point. I said I need to come in and have a consultation. I got all my MRI reports. I said no one wants to do anything at U of M No one wants to treat it. And if they did, they wanted to do some weird procedure that I read up on and everybody and everybody was saying no, don't have the aspiration of the cyst flew into Dallas. He looked at my MRI. He said all of your symptoms correlate to Tarloff's cyst disease, which is basically a, it's basically a fluid filled cyst on your, your spinal nerve root. And it's, it's, I guess, spinal.

9:53 What's the spinal fluid that balloons your nerve root out and then starts compressing all the other nerves. So that's why my urine was trickling out. That's why I felt like I was sitting on a rock. And he said, I can do the surgery. You'll be here, you'll be in hospital for 10 days. And then you'll have to for seven days. And then you'll be recovering for 10 days in Dallas. So here I am in Michigan. I have two children. And then I have to have somebody go with me. And my husband at the time had a really, really high paced sales job. He was in global payments and he was always gone. And I'm thinking, how am I going to do this? Mom? My parents were very supportive. So I knew I had help. So we flew to Dallas. I and he said, listen, I'm going to stop the progression, but your symptoms might still be there. And I'm like, he's like, it's possible your nerves can get better, but it if we don't do it now, it's possible that you might not be able to, to walk pee again. I mean, it was bad.

10:52 So I went, he had the surgery. It, it wasn't actually that it was bad. Don't get me wrong, it was bad, but they, they were just amazing. He knew what he was doing. I loved Dallas. I had never been to Dallas before. They were great. The whole team was great. He's just phenomenal. And I had like, I'd become friends with like two or three other people that were having it done at the same time. It's usually women that have these and they're you can go all up down your spine. So now I have a propensity to get them all up and down my spine. I haven't gotten a new one, thank God. But there was a young man that was with in the next room and he was probably 20 years old and very unusual for a man to have it.

11:36 And he had had it. And oh, the things that men have when they have it in their sacrum. Terrible. So I recovered, he said, a five year recovery, five years. So I was like, oh man. And at this point I was working part time. I'd never really been able to go. First of all, I had children. And second of all, my health was just never great. It was just never, it was always something bizarre. I had these myoclonic seizures. I had the deep depression. I also had two children. I just was never able to go. Now I had a career job. I work in engineering, but they let me come back part time. It was amazing and they were very, very, I was blessed.

12:17 I got had a really good manager. He's like you do do the work, you're fine. Just come in 20 hours a week. I was on my husband's insurance, thank God, and I just started healing. It took about 6, I think I took six months off. It took me a while and then I went back part time. And I would say in 2022, I got in a bad car accident and totaled my car. A guy had hit me in a roundabout and it ignited something in my body, some kind of inflammatory response. Not really sure at this. Before that I had been acupuncture, massage therapy, homeopathic I I have done it all anything natural I have done and it nothing was helping me.

13:10 I couldn't stop the pain. I couldn't even, I couldn't even go to work barely if I did, I was crying. It was bad. And I was thinking either I'm going back on pain medication, which I never did a lot. I was very careful with it, or I got to do something else like a spinal simulator. What do I do at this point? And people with Tarloff cyst don't do well with spinal stimulators. So I was like, gosh, I, I can't live the rest of my life at this point. I'm, I think I, I was 45 when I got it. So I was about 48, I think when that well, 2022. I can't remember how old I was, but I was, I was like, I cannot end my life now. Like this is, I have a lot more life left. So my husband said, you know, Amanda, his best friend's wife, she has endometriosis really bad in the hospital, in the hospital every month.

14:04 He's like, she takes kratom every night. Remember I told you that? And I, I said, yeah, I remember. But I, I don't know. I just didn't think anything of it because I, I was so weirded out by it. I was like, no, I'm not taking a tea, you know? And then he's like Stacey, don't you remember in the mid 90s, my friend Bart, he was in the mid 90s. I remember Zach telling me his friend Bart would crush up the kratom leaves, put him in capsules and then mail. He was, he worked for a mail order company in Ann Arbor and he would ship them to women that have women's problems, whatever that meant. That's about the only information I got on my husband. I tried to before I talked to you and he was, that's all I got out of them.

14:48 So this was, I've heard this in the mid to late 90s. I just thought, I have no idea what this plant is. I just knew that if this guy that he was seeing encapsulating it, I was, he was a little sketchy. So I was like, I I'm not touching this. But then when he knew and I was desperate and I think this is what you hear a lot. People are desperate because they're kind of weirded out by kratom, right? I don't know what this is. And I called Amanda and I said, how do you take it? What do you take? Where do I go? And she was just unbelievably helpful. She gave me, you know, go to the AKA, look at vendor approved, try little sample packs, you know, certain she went the whole gamut, greens, Reds, whites, all that. And I did, I ordered the stuff.

15:40 I started out 1g, got one of those teeny little scales start out 1g. And it was probably, I think my first time taking kratom was probably one of the funniest things that my family has seen. We had just had a garage sale and I'm like I'm going to try my kratom for the first time trying to green belly strain. Did a 1g and remember I don't drink caffeine. I took 1g and I could not stop talking like I literally could. I was like, and I was outside and my family's like, what did she take? Like at this point, I think Zach is the only one, My husband is the only one that knew that I had taken the creative.

16:23 I could not stop talking Now it didn't, it didn't really help with my pain at the point, but it made me happy and I could not stop talking. And it was they were laughing hysterically and they like they will never forget the first day that I took it because I talked nonstop. So then I'm thinking, well, I got I need to increase this. So I think the next, I think I went into it very slow, maybe two days later I did 2 grams. OK, I can feel a little bit, but it made me a little jittery because I remember I don't drink anything caffeinated so and I'm super sensitive to medication. So I said, well, Amanda said that sometimes the Reds can make you tired. And you know how everybody says the Reds make the pain better? Well, I tried the red and it didn't work for me. It didn't even make me sleepy really. It just did nothing.

17:17 So but I'm thinking the greens making me a little jittery. I'm just going to add a touch of the red in I've got to 3G and I noticed I'm like, OK, that's that is something like from head to toe. My pain got better. I mean, I had really bad, you know, the bladder pain and the sacral pain and the nerve pain was just excruciating. And that went from an 8 to A2, I would say 8 to a 2. And I was like, and I used to be a big runner and I was like, I feel like I'm going to run. And my husband's like slow it down. You know, you just took this at your, this is a little just let's adjust.

17:59 So I kind of stayed with the greens and Reds and I went up to eventually about a 3 1/2 grams. And I'm one of those people that measure it out to the NTH. I'm just real OCD that way. I know some people just dump it and they're good. I am not that way. I did one time take 4G and I threw it up. So I know that I have a threshold for me personally. And so 3 1/2 is my sweet spot. I alternate between different. I have different strains of green and different vendors, which I learned from you and other people, but I also learned from my husband because he is a cannabis user and he would have talked about strain confusion and stuff like that. And he actually now works in the cannabis industry. So he and they, the cannabis industry, they sell kratom in Michigan at their places.

18:58 I don't get it from there. I get it from the the approved vendors. But he had no, he had no by kratom for a long time. And he's like, Stacey, you should have tried this 20 years ago. I'm like, there's no way I would have done it. So now I'm still bizarre. I'm a little weird about it still. I probably should take it every day, but I take it five days, five times a day, five days, once a day, five days a week. And I have two days off. And the reason I do that, and I probably this is too much information, but Constipation. And it doesn't matter what I do now that I I went through early menopause because of my surgery.

19:43 It threw me in an early menopause at 45. And every single symptom that you can have with menopause, I have had Constipation is one of them. And so then you add kratom on to it. It does not matter. I think the only thing that it can dislodge anything is if I take a fiber drink probiotic. Lacks, 2 Lacks. I mean, it's ridiculous. So I take two days off just to kind of give my body a little so I don't get used to the strains, and then just to give my body a little bit of regular day. Now those days are rough. I will admit that I sometimes take a tramadol, 25 milligrams Tramadol, and I'll take a Tylenol and an Aleve.

20:32 My husband thinks it's ridiculous. He's like, you should be taking it all the time. He's like, why are you doing this to yourself? I'm still working through that. It's been since 2022. I'm still like finding new vendors. I'm really like weird about finding new vendors because I don't know, some people got me all weirded out. They're like, you should test it for fentanyl and all that other stuff. And I was like, oh, don't put that in my brain. I'm already a warrior and I'm getting it from their approved vendors. So I was like, oh, OK, so I'm going off of this list, you know, And yeah, that's kind of where I am now.

21:14 I took it today at about 10 and I feel great. I mean, I felt like like with with another thing with menopause is not only does my back, my nerves hurt where my back is and my bladder, but the joint pain that comes with menopause from head to toe. I feel like I have the flu all the time. Did not know that that would happen. My mom had a hysterectomy at a very young age. She didn't tell me about any. No one talks about this, but I love to talk about this. I like to talk about kratom and I like to talk about menopause. That sounds like a podcast you just start.

21:54 And my, that's all my girlfriends and I talk about and I, it has helped me so much with menopausal symptoms. The, the pain, that joint pain. I mean, if I take it and I have all that my normal pain and the joint pain and I take it and it just eases everything I can, I can go out and run now I do like a run, walk. I can do any kind of video, like workout video. I mean, I can't I still have, if you'll see me shifting a lot, I still can't sit normally. That's the one thing with is I have a plate in my back where my sacrum is and it still hurts to sit. That was the so I have a stand, sit desk wherever I'm at.

22:38 Driving hurts me tremendously to this day, even if I have kratom, I can't drive very far. So that kind of stopped me going for long distance drives, even long plane rides. My in laws live in Spain. It's a tough, tough flight over. I have two teenagers, so one's almost 28, and they drive me around, so thank God. But yeah, that's that's kind of a short Cliff Notes version of my crazy life. Stacy, your story's amazing and you're a great storyteller. I mean, you just painted the entire picture and you did such a great job of that. So thank you for for sharing all of that. You know what's interesting with you? And I think like many of us as we get older, you're so in tune to your body and like you really are aware of everything. Because when we're like that, we're able to understand more than the doctor does many times, you know, because that we're paying attention to every little detail. Yeah, I, I have become my own advocate right away and I do the same for my children and my husband. I, I, I have probably had 95% bad doctors, 4% good doctors, maybe one, well, No 3% good doctors and 1% excellent doctors because I've been in the system since I was very young. I'm about 50 now.

24:08 So it's like I've seen, I've seen and heard it all. And I, I go into certain situations if I go into a new specialist and I could just tell right away, I'm like, we're not going to get along. You know what I mean? It's just not going to happen. I do have a really fabulous doctor that's a homeopath and MD right now. And she's, she's like, you can do the Kratom or I can give you Tramadol. What do you, I mean, she was the first doctor since they stopped giving opioids. That's like, you know what, you're a chronic pain patient. She's like, I know you don't abuse it. If anything, you don't take anything I give you like I've been on all I've been at all. I've been on every antidepressant, I've been on every gabapentin.

24:52 I've been at all for pain and nothing helped until I did grade them. Not even when I take the tramadol during the off days takes my pain from a nine to maybe a 5-6. And then I have to take a leave and a Tylenol on top of it and it still doesn't do anything. So again, like why am I doing this to myself? Yeah, yeah, that's, it's so interesting. Well, you know, when I was in pain management for 9 years, I, I had never really ventured into botanicals and, and supplements and stuff all that much. So, you know, you don't know what you don't know, at least for me. And so I was just like, grateful I could get access to the opioids for my chronic pain. And I was like, OK, well, at least I'm able to function more and I can work more and do stuff. And I'm like, OK, this is not bad. I mean, I didn't feel great.

25:42 And I still have a very high pain level. I mean, my really good day would be a six or seven easily. Like, I never was below that. On a good day, bad days with all the opiates, I'd be at a 10 or I told the doctor, I'm at 11. You know, like a lot of people don't understand what we go through when we suffer from really severe chronic pain. And when I lost that access, I'm like, really freaking out. Like, I mean, it wasn't that opiates were a magic pill for me, but it allowed me to not be on disability, to be able to work, to be functioning, to be a mom, to do all the things I wanted to do. I couldn't do a lot of physical activity, but that was OK. You learn to that. You learn that that's OK. Yes, you really do.

26:25 And that's like, I was an athlete before, I'm not an athlete anymore, you know what I mean? I at least can live my life and I'm not in a wheelchair, right? I, yeah, I you got to put things into perspective. And even, I mean, I remember them trying to give me methadone and my husband's like, you're not taking that. And I'm like, take something at some point as before kratom And he knew it. I mean, and he's he's like, take it if you need it. But I think at that point I had gotten on some better medication, but it, this was just such a Hayden was just such a blessing to me. And I, I didn't even know it was out there.

27:10 You know, I knew it was out there, but I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it. I just assumed it would never happen with my pain because I have the nerve pain is so bad. I thought, well, it's muscle pain, it's endometriosis. No. And I also have 5 ruptured dips in my neck. And that was the car accident and I'm not having surgery on that. I'm just, I just go to PTIII mean it. I have to say sometimes my neck pain is worse than my back pain. I don't know which one's worse. So I say to my doctor sometime I said, listen, I feel like I'm dying. Like do I, if someone would say I, this is terrible to say and gosh, God, I don't mean this, but I, it's like if someone would say I had cancer, like I would not be shocked.

27:52 Like that's how bad I felt. Like my bones hurt. You know, you can't live like that. You just can't. It's to the point where the pain is so bad I shake, you know, I'll start shaking and all I can do is lay down on the like on the side. I can't stand the ground laying down all the time. So kratom has just been amazing, just with just a few side effects that it's not bad. Trying the Constipation. I do notice that it does effects my sex drive a little bit. That's just me. I am trying to figure out if the 30 lbs I gained was from menopause or something.

28:37 I don't know what it's from because I work out and I don't eat very much, so I'm just like a lot of people that take kratom say they lose weight. I people have been all over the map with that because you know, my TikTok so many times people ask questions and then like in a comment, I'll turn into a video post so that everybody can answer. And it's always interesting when we have that particular subject because, you know, some people say they, they've lost a lot of weight since they started Kratom. Some people say I've gained weight. You get a lot of us that say no change, no change. It's just it's always across the board, isn't it's never like this pinpoint. I've heard sex drive. I've heard that one before from people. Usually men will say that, but sometimes I've heard that one.

29:20 Constipation, I think is the most common reaction with Kratom. And but you know what, so was opiates. I I actually had worse experience with that when I was in pain management than I did with Kratom. But what's interesting that I always tell people, because a lot of people are like, I don't know what to take with with this kratom Constipation. I said, look, when I was in pain management, I had a lot of that was like my biggest adverse reaction was dealing with that. And at one point my doctor had me use Senna S, which is over the counter. And you know, that one's good because the combination of the softener and a laxative. And he says it's safe to take every day. You could take 3A day and, and that should help you tremendously because we were going to put me on prescription one. I'm like, well, if I can avoid a prescription one that's not as strong.

30:08 So he said, let's try this. If it doesn't work, then we'll do the prescription Senna S3 times a day took care of me, you know, on the tail end of my opiate. It's pain management days when just because of the different meds we were using. That was a lot worse than before when I switched to kratom and everybody was talking about Constipation being, you know, like the one big thing a lot of people talk about having to deal with. I thought, well, I'm already taking a Cinna S. I'll just continue taking it and maybe I need more, maybe I need less. Let's see. And I so I didn't stop the Cinna S. So I did not have any Constipation issues. And as a matter of fact, I even tried taking less of it to see, well, maybe I don't need it three times a day.

30:48 Maybe I can take less of it. And and I was like, OK, I'm just do it twice a day. So I do it twice a day. And so all these years so I still take the same over the. Counter. That's amazing, yeah. And I sweat, but I take a little bit less. And I've mentioned this quite a few times in conversations with people and so many people said I didn't think to try that one. And when people come back and say, wow, that that really did help me. Yep, Yep, I've been. I take a fiber trach in the morning and then I take and then sometimes I'll push it with some little Miralax in my water and that seems to be fine. And yeah, I, I think it, I never had an issue with that before. So it was like another thing.

31:30 But yeah, I mean, there's certain side effects. But to to be pain free and live my life, I mean the, the small little things that I can deal with outweighs dramatically. Now I do notice, I did notice when I was there was a point when I was taking it twice a day and I do I was doing it more twice a day. I had my dentist tell me my teeth were getting stained and I was like, you brush my teeth a lot. I have, I'm just genetically predisposed to have terrible teeth. Like I I could brush my teeth all day long and I get cavities. That's just what happens. To my teeth, I'm the same way. And it's like, I don't even think if I took I would still get a cavity. But they're like, we noticed that you have some staining and that they're like as soon as you're due, you know, because I wasn't brushing right after the kratom. And so now I just brush real soon after just to hurry and get the stain off.

32:25 And then I just do some more whitening stuff. But they haven't said anything since about that. I haven't heard that one before though I haven't heard anybody say about staining. Though that's yeah, he's like, he's like a little stained and I'm like. Like a coffee stain. Yeah, and I didn't really ask what color because I was like, oh, I'm probably my kratom, which I tell everybody about because I everybody that's knows me knows that I've had pain for a long, long time, especially at work. I measure my little cup. I we have a beautiful, I have a beautiful workplace. And when I go, I go in twice a week and I get my hot water. And so I'm always in the cafeteria, which is there's little cafeterias all throughout the building.

33:07 And so people, I've been there 15 years. So people come up and they're like, Oh, you taking your drink? And I have educated more people than I ever thought possible. And because people know me and they know that I'm not somebody that's just would take anything. They're very interested in it. And I've had quite a few people start taking it. So it's, it's been interesting. They'll say, look, my, my, my brother-in-law, he can't move, come as a back pain. And, and I said, well, get, get him in contact me. I'll you kind of need somebody to kind of help you. It's a little bit intimidating if you know nothing about it. And I've, I've done that with a few people now. So I, I did have, I did have somebody recently, I'd had a party for my husband for his 50th and I had somebody say, Stacy, I saw you post that you were taking Kratom.

34:02 So I, he goes, I have really bad back pain. So he went to the gas station and got the seven whatever or the and he said he had never been so sick in his whole life. I said, you cannot take. I told you to contact me and there was somebody else that was there that was taking it. And they're like, no, you never take that. You always do the crushed, you know, purely of kratom. He's like, I didn't know. And it was he's it soured him on it so badly that I don't know if he's going to try it again. But I was trying to tell him like that's not kratom so. Yeah, it's scary. Like those products because they're synthesized and when people hear us talk about kratom, we're just talking about a leaf.

34:46 But they go to a smoke shop or convenience store and there's all these other extremely potent products that are nothing like what you and I assume, but they but they're called kratom. Yes, yes, it's very deceptive. I actually had my, my old boss say to me, he comes up to me last week. He said, is this the stuff they're banning that you drink that green stuff? And I said, no, it's not. And I tried to like go into it. I felt like he was not listening to me very well. But I mean, I was like, no, that's not kratom. And I've had a few people say that to me and I've had to have a few chats with them, especially my mom. My mom, she's very conservative.

35:29 She doesn't want me to eat really taking anything. But she like encourages me now she's like Stacy, just take Kratom. She's like, why are she's like, why are you making yourself suffer? Like why? Because she sees me suffer and she's just like, I don't just take it, stop being weird about it. So I'll just take it. I love that. Well, it's great to have support of your family for sure. I think that's incredibly important. So that leads me to my next question for you. What did your family think when they saw you like suffer in pain and then start switch to kratom and you're just doing so much better? What? What were their thoughts on that? It was like a miracle, like it was like taking someone that was almost an invalid and I was not only normal but almost back to better than I was before because I've always been had some issues.

36:22 But not only that, but it helped with my depression too. It gave me a little bit of a mood lift. I felt happy. I didn't, I don't feel any euphoria. I don't feel. I just feel happier. Maybe that's also because I don't have any pain, but I think everybody thought it was a miracle. My mom at first was a little skeptical because of course you don't really know. But she also trusts me and she knows I'm very, very picky with what I take, like any medication. And my husband was amazed. He was like I he, we had known that our friend that had infometerosis, she had sworn by it not had to go back to the hospital in years now because of it. And I'm thinking, well, maybe that's just her, you know, But when it hit my nerve pain, I was like, is this a fluke? You know, like it's just like I didn't know what to think. Actually.

37:16 It was shocking to me that a plant leaf could do this. My husband was shocked. Everybody was shocked. And then they were they were like, continue taking it like obviously be careful, don't overdo it, which obviously if I did like I took the 4G and I threw it up like I'm very sensitive. So but they're they're very supportive. My kids know what it is. I educate them on that. Yeah, I don't all both of my friends when I have two good girlfriends from college, I just went on a vacation with one of them and she knows I measure out my Kratom before we do anything during the day.

37:57 And it's like no one even says anything. They're just so used to it, you know. And if I say and I kind of like I don't drink it fast like I I put it in like a mug like this fill up with hot water and I kind of believe it or not, I can handle the taste. There's something about it I don't mind. I know I probably want the weird ones, but a small percentage of y'all that's. For sure, you know I have. I've always had low iron like and so I crave like earthy tastes and so like beets, anything that's earthy tastes that people mostly don't like I like. I like very earthy taste. So this do I love it? No, but I can sip on this puppy for a good 30 minutes.

38:41 Wow. Which is probably. When my teeth get. Stained, I was about to say, because I was. Curious, you know, like how are you drinking it like like I I do it as a tea as well, but I just do small amount of water. I just want to mix it up really good, add some orange juice, drink it really fast or some kind of juice drink it really. So I mean, and I and even drink it really fast in the beginning is like this tastes so bad. But I know, I know. But one day, yeah, I don't know how. So even one day into my journey, like couple years in, I'm like, what if I use a straw? So then they'll go down. Then I don't have to taste it as much, even though I'm still drinking a very small amount of the liquid part of it. And so I did a straw. I'm like, that was easier. I wish I'd known to do that in the beginning. So I always tell people if they're having, if they're doing swamp water, like like I'm not going to do toss and wash. That's not for me.

39:31 I'm going to just make it like the little tea tea, but not a big tea like I, you know, those are all that drink a big drink. I'm like, no, I just want to be a little like a cappuccino. Like I just yeah, mix the powder in with with a small amount of liquid as it would take to mix it in, add some juice, slam it down really quick and and now I'm getting my 6 hour pain release. Yeah, but a straw did help a lot and and there probably it would be a way to avoid staining teeth if but like if you like sipping it, I can totally understand like and it's a routine you have. It's a routine and I do. This, like this is what I drink out of it earlier. I mean, I probably fill it to like right here with hot, like hot water. And then I do my 3 1/2 and it probably takes me about 20 minutes to drink. It's something about, yeah.

40:17 It's something. I don't know, it's just my way. It's just my way. And I for some reason it's I'm not going to say it tastes good. It just doesn't bother me. And so I just, I'm able to do it. I know I have given to my husband a few times and he's like, he's like gagging like I'm like, give me a break. You could not be gagging right now. And he chugs it and it's I've given it to him. He has, he's a snowboarder, A skateboarder. He has so many injuries. So now he has pins are all over and cannabis is his thing. So it works for him. But every now and then I said, why don't you try some kratom and I'll give it to him. And it does work.

40:57 He likes it, but he has to pound it really fast. And so I make it a little, I don't make it as hot. I make it pretty hot when I drink it. He pounds it and then he's like, Oh my gosh, how do you do that? And I'm like, I don't know, I just do, you know, And then I've had a few people at work, they're like, can I taste that? It looks disgusting. And I'm like, sure. And they're like, Oh my gosh, you're drinking that for like at least 1520 minutes. I'm like, I know. But it's, it's just, it's comforting to me, you know? Yeah, no, that makes. I totally get that, and that makes perfect sense. And I also think it's interesting that, you know, your system is five days on, two days off. You know, the other people do that. I mean, you have to figure out what works for you and what you know, what helps you, what you're comfortable with. In my case, I've taken it every day for six years, over six years.

41:50 I've never taken a tolerance break. I've never needed to. And I don't know if it's from rotating vendors and strains. When I first started, people that knew more than I did would talk about that. They would say the best way to avoid tolerance issues is to always be rotating. And I thought, well, that's interesting. And I was already buying from several different companies. I thought, well, I can just regularly do that. So I always have different ones to rotate. And because I was when I was still experimenting, you want to try other brands just to see like you get that point where like, well, maybe this next one will be better. And you're like, oh, this one is better. And then you go to another one. You go, oh, that was mediocre. OK, I see. Some are really good, some are mediocre. Yes. It really lets me down like I'll get the sample packs and it's like a kid opening a Christmas present and I'm like, oh, it looks really green like is this?

42:39 And sometimes it just doesn't hit like I felt nothing. And I've gone through at least 5-6 vendors and I still go back to the one and it's just, I can't get that level. Whatever. I don't know what they it's a green strain and I, I don't know what they specifically do. It looks like a higher percentage. I can never say the word of what exactly. Yeah. Midragaining, yes. There's multiple. Ways of saying that? I just yeah, midragaining. Midragaining I. Always say, I see, I do well with the high mint greens is what I've noticed. Because some, some of the vendors will list what that percentage of the medragynine is or you go look up the QR code or go to their website for their certificate analysis to see it. But some of them like some of the brains I like, they actually have it right on the package, the amount of the medragynine. And I've noticed when it's the higher ones, I get the best pain relief.

43:38 But everybody's different. Everybody's different. If I go down a certain percentage, if it's like a below for me personally, if it's a below a 1.4, yeah, I don't feel anything. So I have to be specific. I was like I said, adding a little red here and there just to sometimes I get the jitters a little. I have tried white White's too. Much I felt. I felt like I was like, oh, I just felt very jittery and I felt like my skin was crawling and I, I didn't like it red just didn't really. Maybe it was a little calmy maybe, but nothing for pain. Same here.

44:18 Same here. It's. Just sometimes I might feel a little bit calmer with it, but no pain relief. It's like, okay, but I want pain relief. That's the only reason why I take this. The only reason why I take it I would love. To get some good. Sleep from it. When people talk about the best sleep they've had from red kratom, I'm like, I wish that worked for me, too, but it never has. And that's OK. Because for me, the main thing, if I can get pain relief for my neck and back with my degenerative disk disease, I'm happy. Now I have other pains. You know, I don't look it, but I'm 60. And yeah, you look great. Thank you. Good genes, my mom. Always looked young, my mom always looked young and I'm like, I hope I'm like that when I get older. But we're going to have other pains as we age and kratom doesn't always help my other joint pains and stuff.

45:01 And that's OK because my main is a degenerative, this disease. And if I can have that under control, I can live with anything else, you know? Absolutely. So I do great. And I will supplement with Tylenol from time to time for my joint pain or Aleve or whatever is figuring out what works for you. Yeah, yeah. And it's. You know, for me, I'm just trying to like I had, I also take some seizure medication. So it's like I did notice that sometimes if I took two doses of kratom, I felt like there's a feeling when you you're getting ready to have a seizure, like you could feel it coming. I noticed it made me feel a little off, just me personally, but that's because I have a seizure disorder. It's my chronic seizure.

45:46 So it almost looks like I have Tourette's. It's really bizarre. And it gets so bad at night. So if I don't take a seizure medication at night, I can't sleep. But I also can't sleep anyways now that you're in menopause. So it's like I'm trying everything, you know, magnesium, I'm doing everything, every supplement you could take, I'm trying. And you know, I don't drink alcohol. So like really I'm kind of boring now. I just don't, I don't do much. I mean, I take my cream tea, that's about it, you know, but it, it makes me, it makes me happy. I mean, I still, I've always had the depression since my first child and they put me on an antidepressant and I've now down to 5 milligrams of it.

46:31 I've been on it for 20 years. I cannot get off of it. I have tried, everybody's tried to get me off of it slow, it doesn't matter. I've tried it and it's not even helping my depression anymore. So I'm like, let's just get off of it. But when I try, I get severe Vertigo and nausea. And I said, you know what, I'm just, I'm not dealing with it. I'm just going to take the 5 milligrams and then I take the kratom and it helps with the depression. So it's like, you know, I'm just and it unfortunately it doesn't help with the, with the withdrawals from antidepressants. Kratom does not there. It didn't help with the Vertigo and the and the nausea. It just help us pain, you know, But yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just like I did take one of my seizure meds out about a few months ago.

47:23 So I've only had one now. But it's just, you know, what works for everybody. And you're, you're a different stage in your life. You're like, OK, that's not working anymore. Let's ship this around. And I mean, God bless the people that don't have to do this. Yeah, I mean, they're lucky I have. This pill container. And I, you know, I've, I've had it since I was in my young 20s and my, my college friends are like, Stacy, I have never seen you without your pill container. And I used to take offense at it. Now I'm like, I don't really care. You know, it's just what it's just what it takes to keep this going, right? Exactly, exactly. Your story is so interesting and I'm so glad we're doing this because I know there are people listening right now.

48:06 They're getting so much value out of this. You're such a great storyteller. I know I already said that, but I'm gonna say it again because you are. You really paint the picture really well for us. Before we wind down, is there anything that we haven't covered yet you think people need to hear about? I mean, you're a great advocate. I love that you've been like educating people around you. Is there anything else we haven't covered yet that we want to make sure is out there? I just think. Go, just do your research. Make sure it's an approved vendor. Don't go to gas stations, don't go to the head shops. Get start with the sample packs. You know, for me, I measure it out. Some people might just want to take a teaspoon. Start slow, low, slow and low.

48:52 Low and slow. Yeah, that's possible. For to tell. People, yeah. Go. I think it's always good to. Take a stool softener. Just pop it in there. It can't hurt you. Yeah, it won't hurt. It won't hurt and you know. What it it may combat something that might change your mind about it. Maybe you're like, oh, I can't deal with this and you'll stop it. And and I think with anything you just need to be cautious. You can't overdo it, right? You can't take it like 20 times a day. You need to be cautious with anything to take even a Tylenol. And I think I do a lot of I'm a big researcher, so I'm constantly up on the laws. And in Michigan, it's legal.

49:35 I'm always terrified that something's going to happen. And but then my husband's like, just stop. Just just stop thinking like that. I'm always just seeing what's going on. And because my family, I have family all over, I do travel sometimes from state to state and I go over to Spain with it, which is always very nerve wracking for me. So just keeping up on the laws statewide and worldwide I have to do because I do travel. So that's a little nerve wracking, but I've done it a lot. I still get nervous, but just being being careful with that and just know that I mean, it's just a plan.

50:17 It's just a, a plant in the coffee family. It's not an opioid. It's not something that's going to make you high. It's something that if you have pain, especially it's, it's really going to be beneficial. That's so well said that I love that. What a great way to end this amazing conversation, Stacey, because I mean, you wrapped it up so well and you're giving great advice for anybody that wants to learn more about kratom and get started. And that's really you should write a book because you're good. You really got a. Lot going on OK I won't yeah, I'd only. Give you something else to do, but but you would write you would do it really well. Well with the book. This has been great. Stacey. Thank you for having me.

50:58 We appreciate. This. Yeah. Thank you so much.