This is how messed up our system is. So, long story, (too long to cover in this post) but, I have calcium oxalates. They really hurt. They are sharp crystals, often referred to as chards, that somehow spread throughout the body and deposit in bone and soft tissue, where they stay and wreak havoc beyond anything imaginable. It’s like being sliced and cut 24/7 from the inside out. If they start to move around, the pain gets worse. It is an excruciating condition, of which few know much about.
I share this because I am constantly trying ways to relieve pain. Of course, I have our stretching routine and our muscle rub, but there are times I need more.
Desperate, and moving from wanting to relieve pain to wanting to numb the pain (yes, I have put Anbesol on my hips. FYI, it burns.) I found pure benzocaine powder on Amazon. Mind you, it is classified as an OTC drug by the FDA. 🤷🏻♀️
Meanwhile, our natural muscle rub and lube were listed on, but removed from, Amazon. And this is why the system is so messed up. There are no ingredients in either of those products that require regulation or approval. Rather, our products are made with natural, whole, often organic ingredients.
For example, we use menthol and camphor for pain relief and 3 organic oils for the lubrication. Both were “disallowed.” Meanwhile, have you ever looked at the labels on factory-made lubes/pain relief products and seen the s#@t they put in there?
So, anyway, I take my butters and oils and plan to whip up a numbing benzo body butter for the worst days, which I did, luckily right before my next oxalate attack. I was experiencing what felt like a small handful of glass chards in the joint space of my left hip and right below my kneecaps. I couldn’t move. I was desperate for relief, and more desperate to be able to get on with my day.
What happened next was utterly shocking.
I had put the size of a small pea of the cream on both knees. Within seconds they went numb. I was ecstatic. My first thought was that I'd made one helluva discovery. My second was to wonder, why other numbing creams that claim to be numbing, weren't as good?
I now had a completely new appreciation of the word, “numb.”
About 30 minutes later, I tasted chemicals in the back of my throat and felt lightheaded. Then, because I felt kind of high, I reached for the calculator on my phone to recalculate how much of the powder I had actually added feeling a little concerned that my metrics were off. Relieved, my calculations confirmed that there was less than the recommended 1% benzocaine in my body butter. Great. I was reassured that I hadn’t inadvertently poisoned myself.
Shortly thereafter, I felt a warm wave wash over my hip - and it too went numb. I got up, shocked that I could stand, let alone walk to the gym. With each step, I noticed I was getting higher and higher, kind of like when you go under anesthesia, and you get that floaty feeling right before you’re knocked out.
By the time I got to the gym, I wasn’t sure if I could feel my legs, which was confirmed when after 3 minutes in cryotherapy, at roughly 150 degrees below 0, I wasn't dying to get out. Usually at about halfway through the session, I start asking how much time is left on the clock.
So, here we have a situation where people can buy an actual drug, not on some obscure site on the dark web, but on Amazon. And yet, at the same time, Amazon forbade our products that used nothing more complicated than ingredients like natural peppermint to cool and organic oils to lubricate. I mean, how messed up?