About Us
Hello! My name is Kris Blacksmith. I am a native to Colorado and as an alternative health practitioner I listen to your body and your mind.
In 2011, I began suddenly having extreme pains. I was only 19 and had not been injured. I tried my primary care physician in Denver, multiple times, and he accused me of drug seeking. I tried seeing a new doctor and he told me that I was overweight. I was only 10 lbs. over the suggested weight. Finally a doctor in Evergreen believed me.
Three specialists later I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and thought that finally it was over. I could get treatment and no longer have pain. I was very wrong. The doctor put me on Lyrica. This prescription drug barely made a dent in my pain and had horrible side effects.
It messed with my memory to the extent that I forgot things the same day they happened, I was dehydrated constantly, and had difficulty sleeping even years after stopping the prescription.
I thought that there had to be a better way and I began looking at natural alternatives.
I started with CBD. The CBD worked better than the Lyrica but was not 100% effective. The CBD also was unfortunately out of my price range. I began to seek out alternative health knowledge. I bought a lot of books at thrift stores and found one at a gift shop in Colorado Springs. This book is what led me to become an herbal healer.
Indian Herbology of North America by Alma R Hutchens. This book had two herbs listed prickly ash and meadowsweet that under conditions helped was Fibromyalgia. I figured it was worth a try. My partner at the time knew of a shop in Denver that sold herbs. I looked and they had both herbs available. The next time we went to Denver we stopped by.
The shop was awesome and reminded me of apothecaries from books. Remedies lined the shelves and one of them was called Achy Breaky Joint Pain Relief tea. Joint pain was one of my symptoms so I thought no harm in trying it. I went to the counter showed them the product I wanted and also asked for meadowsweet and prickly ash to be added. What I did not know was that one of there staff was trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine. He asked to look at my tongue. He looked for approximately a minute looked at the formula and said you need this too. I was given a note with the amounts of each herb to order in the future. This formula changed my life! I was still dealing with the disease but it was so much more manageable.
As long as I drank my tea each day my pain went from an 8 or 9 to 2 or 3 sometimes it didn't exist. I could not believe that I had finally found something that actually helped. I continued to study from the various books I had found and gathered more as time went on. I spent 7 years in self study and towards the end of that time looked at what I needed to do to make helping people this way my job. I found that the fastest way was to go to a school. I found the American Herbalist Guild who had a list of suggested schools. After researching I had it narrowed down to 3. The first one I tried did not work for me. It was purely memorizing each plant and it's functions which was difficult and would have taken a long time to master. After comparing the two other schools I ended up picking the East West School of Planetary Herbology. The thing I liked about the program was that they mixed three modalities Traditional Chinese Medicine, Western Herbalism, and Ayurvedic Medicine. I finished my lessons in 3 years.
It has been a privilege to learn about plants and how they can help heal people. I have enjoyed treating family, friends, and now the wonderful community of clients that I build each day.
