Glad you found my post interesting Bri. As for your past history of drug and alcohol use, I don't think it is a factor. I know people who have never smoked or drank and suffer fro chronic cluster headaches. 75% of cluster heads smoke. Not everyone who smokes gets a cluster headache. In my opinion, cluster, migraine, paroxyml hemecrania, are genetic. Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones, has good genes. He's partied enough for all of us and he does not have a headache condition
My concern is with the TAC type headache (HA). See here for quick reference:
http://www.chpci.com/index_files/h5.htm
I have the chronic case of paroxyml hermecrania. I am 44 years old and it began 19 months ago and I could be facing a lifetime of this. It is a daily, unremitting HA that has seriously altered my life. The only prescript
ion drug that I have taken that it respons to is Indomethacine. Indocin is a non steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) that is notorious for severe gastri side effects, ie. peptic ulcers, etc. Some can take itindefintely, most cannot. Antacids can be given but the long term out look may not be so good. Yesterday my Nuero offered me Lyrica or Nurontin. Thanks but no thanks for now. Stupefying drugs and I need to be sharpe as a TAC everyday. There may come a time when I am forced to try these drugs or others. But based what the experts say, these will be last resorts for me. To my mind, the experts are the people suffering with these HA's and who have spent years experimenting with different drugs. The doctors don't have the HA and they don't take the drugs. They just pass one out till you come back to get another.
As for the indole hallucinogens, in 1938 Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman was looking for a pain reliever for migraine as well as child birth when he discovered LSD. LSD, psilocybin, and LSA are all in the same class. DMT is included but this not the most practical one due to it's lack of availability and superduper strength. LSA, in case you don't know, come from certain morning glory seeds and is similar in chemical structure to LSD.
I may stand corrected, but the theory is that there is a malfunction in the brain as it relates to pain signaling which is causing the HA. We don't know why this is happening. A sub-psychedelic dose of one of these agents, will flood the brain with serotonin like molecules which will push normal (in our case, the malfunctioning molecules) out of the way and will settle in to the receptor sites. In essence, this is a rearrangement of the signal. This is a treatment, not a cure.
I took psychedelics for recreation before I ever got this HA. Mostly in my younger days but I still dabbled here and there. So it was no big leap of faith for me to try this. Over the past year, I have made 3 attempts. I am currently on my 4th. This time with a new approach. Initially back in Dec 2009 my Nuero diagnosed me with " cluster variant". So I set about
thinking I had cluster. Over the next few months I took a regimen of various drugs which were either ineffective or has intolerable side effects. Interestingly, the first drug he put me on was Indomethacin. Smart move on his part. My response was that it did not work. When I tried it again 5 months later, I took it long enough to get a benefit but it tore my stomach up so I stopped.
As I reasearched, every day of my life and still doing so, I came to realize that I did not have classic cluster head symptoms. Someone oanother message board, a site that I will reveal shortly, sent me a link with HA info and when I read the descript
ion of Hemicrania Continua, my jaw hit the floor. That is what I have!!! Cluster does NOT respond to Indomethacin, HC does!
"Busting" as they refer to it, is a clustehead taking a dose of LSD, mushrooms, or LSA in order to "bust" the HA cycle. Most cluste heads get cycles. A good example is a two cycle cluster: 2 months of daily HA's in early spring and then a period of remission until the next 2 month cycle later in the year. The idea is to bust the cycle before it is scheduled to begin. This will prevent it from ever coming. In this scenario, one only needs 2 doses per year. As one starts out on the busting journey, he/she may already be in cycle and will need to bust more in order to break it. Typically this is a dosing schedule of once every 5-7 days for 2 to 3 weeks.
Chronic clusterheads on the other hand, never experience a remission. The HA is always on the attack. This may require several busts to break. I was never able to break my own chronic cycle. I wondered since I realized I have HC and not CH, maybe it would not work for me. But these HA's are in the same family and work along the same pathway. So I have not given up yet. The reason is that during many of my own busting attempts, both with shrooms and LSD, I experienced definite relief. A clarity came over me and my pain slipped away as if vacccumed. Once for 3 nights following a low dose bust 3 days earlier, I enjoyed 3 clearheaded evenings for the first time since this ordeal began. The problem is that I have not been able to get lasting and consistent relief. Why?
I got lots of advise from the site I mentioned earlier is clusterbusters.com. I seem to be the only one on the board with HC. Everyone else has cluster and a few have migraine as well. This last time around, exasperated and realign suffering everyday and night, I contacted the founder of the non-profit organization himself. He is the reputable cluster head I spoke of earlier. Bob Wold.
http://vimeo.com/10918637
He said that he did know a couple of people with HC that had success busting. He theorized that since I have been streching doses to every 7 days, I was allowing my HA to return to square one. He recommended I try a 3 day bust. Take my normal dose Friday, the on Saturday and Sunday, take 1/2 that same dose. Due to a fast tolerance to the effects, I would not even feel the effects of Saturday and Sunday's doses. The idea is to spend more time "bathing the receptors". Then follow it up 5 days later with my regular dose. Makes sense to me and what do I have to lose except a HA? This may be a long shot. People with HC have suffered with a daily HA for decades! Why should I be able to break mine with an illegal drug? It is my dream and I have all my chips on it at the moment.
Bob has also mentioned I may want to increase my Friday dose a bit. I have LSD on blotter paper and I also have mushrooms. To conserve on the paper, I decided to take 1/2 tab and .5g of shrooms. When I smashed the dried shrooms in to a powder with a spoon, I noticed a lot of blue tint, in indiction of the presence of psilocybin. This batch is very potent. I did not think much of it but it did turn out to be pretty strong. I have done this combo before and the acid always trumped the shrooms. Not this time. At least for the first 4-5 hours. I dosed at 4:30pm yesterday and as soon as I felt this first hint that the dose was coming one, I felt a noteworthy and slightly alarming spike in my head. It was different. Seemed to be a sign of things to come. By 5:00 I know I was gonna be tripping hard soon. That alarmed me a bit but I could handle it. At 5:15 on my back porch, alone, I was hit with the trip and one ****ing hell of a HA all at once. This has me hanging on to a table and quite scared. It seemed to be the hardest hit I had ever had. I hesitated but finally at @ 5:43 I sent Bob a text asking, CAn you get a bad bad hit during a bust? He said sometimes, sorry. Ok so I called my wife and she calmed me down. I crawled into bed and endured hit of pain after hit of pain....all the while tripping my ass off. I needed a babysitter and Bob was there. He got me thru for an hour till my wife came home. The exacerbations became gradually less and less intense and by 9:00 I was dancing to the Grateful Dead
Basically I stored up a hornets nest. My HA has been on the rise anyway. I and others believe that, due to my weekly busting since June 7, there has been a molecular war going on. The incorrect molecules causing my pain are in a battle with the "correct" molecules I am flooding my brain with.
This am I took 1/4 tab and felt nothing. Tomorrow I will do the same. After my little dance party last nigh, my HA returned about
midnight. A very strong hit...stronger than I had had in the previous 2 hours. At 5:00 am today I work with another banger. I've been in bed all day with a steady HA. No wax and wane. Almost like my base line had risen. It all dissipated about
2:00 today and for the last 3 hrs I have been virtually pain free. We will see when the next week brings. I prayed hard last night. I prayed for God to allow me to break this Ha. Make is episodic at least. Clear as a bell this very moment in beautiful time. Time is the moving image of eternity. Plato said that.
What I have done is not recommended for everyone or for every type of HA. D your own research please. I think that's all for now. I will leave you with this. Harvard is bringing it back:
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2010/11/01/daily44-Harvards-headache-cure-LSD.html
JS