Amanda Schuchardt

Pain warrior / advocate

My Name is Amanda Schuchardt I’m 36 years old and have been in chronic pain for over 13 years now. It’s been a wild ride going through this at such a young age and being dismissed and gaslit at what felt like every turn. After 2017 my life changed dramatically. I was taken off my opioid pain meds Cold turkey that I had been on for around 5 years and put on Suboxone for my pain. What I didn’t know was then diagnosed with Opioid use dependency. The suboxone made my life expediently harder. It was harder to get ethical medical care because people made assumptions about me. Being on this medication made me suicidal and I became extremely depressed I was in pain and on top of it was struggling hard with memory loss. And found out I had a traumatic brain injury that’s causing dementia. In March 2018 I ended up In a behavioral health hospital after an attempt. Because of this have dedicated my life to raising awareness for mental and physical pain. Being hospitalized was the best and hardest experience of my life surviving that. I needed help more than anyone knew. I had to find myself again even with pain and memory loss. Surgeries after being on Suboxone was very hard because I was not being properly treated for pain. I ended up getting two spinal cord stimulators that cause me more pain. In November last year I finally found a dr willing to take me on and treat my pain but it’s been a slow role finding the right dosages on this new medication to me. But throughout the last almost 6 years now I found kratom. I was laying in bed actually contemplating another attempt because even though I got help for my depression I was still in so much physical pain. By the grace of God, I stumbled across a documentary called A Leaf Of Faith. I think it was fate I found it because my life has changed since being on Kratom and for the better! I’m so thankful for this plant and others like it. Especially because of the mess we’re in currently with the “opioid epidemic“ more and more patients are dying and we need to raise awareness that there are options. That are safer and natural too.