Earlier this year my girlfriend started having some tooth pain. Cavities had started to really become worse on her molars and her wisdom teeth were growing in as well. A month later one of her teeth literally cracked open and she lost 1/4th of her tooth. This increased her pain and it became chronic which she has had to deal with now for over 4 months. Unfortunately her insurance doesn’t cover her dental needs and she doesn’t make much money. She has had to resort to ingesting a lot of OTC medications like ibuprofen and naproxen sodium. These barely relieve the pain and we have searched for a way to stop this pain so she can function normally. She ended up going to the emergency room 3 times due to the pain and received prescriptions for antibiotics and pain medication such as ibuprofen 800 and once she received a prescription for Vicodin. These still didn’t really work too well but it helped. The pain became worse and I was desperate. I had known of Kratom in my past when I researched natural plants you could ingest for various benefits and decided to order some for my girlfriend. She started taking Kratom and to my surprise it significantly helped her tooth pain subside. This natural herb, which is legal in most of the world and is currently being legalized in Thailand, should stay legal here in Broward County and in Florida as well. (The CDC website that talks about alcohol http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm) Alcohol which is a LEGAL substance here in America kills 88 THOUSAND people a year in America. I have seen someone die in front of me being hit by a drunk driver and the drunk driver lived, I pulled him out of his car through the window. If we care enough about public health we should ban alcohol use instead of this plant that is being marketed as a synthetic drug and dangerous when it is not. Perhaps we should rid Kratom from the shelves of gas stations and food marts or make it only available to people over 18 years of age. Banning it outright is not the answer. My girlfriend who just had one of her teeth removed by saving up enough money has 4 more teeth that are waiting to be pulled. She was prescribed oxycodone and ran out of them. She currently ingests Kratom to help with her pain, banning Kratom will make her have to deal with chronic pain again and I don’t like seeing her cry herself to sleep. Please reconsider this act to ban Kratom until more information is garnered and a more rational way of handling Kratom is drawn up. Thank you.
