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@Rod H it definitely hasn't stopped the cycle as I have some transient pain, but it's damn close when considering the alternative.

Guys: I expound a theory that the ultimate treatment for the headache cycle lies within the pain itself. I have found the Triptans do cause me re-bounds, but only when in high cycle - also found that there is a point in high cycle when I have to go down in my office at home and let 'er rip. No meds - cold turkey - ice on the head - bang and scream and let the attack run its course. It seems almost like there is a number of attacks in a cycle that you must endure in the purest form of the pain for the Beast to begin to release its bloody talons. However those of you who have let me whine here for the last decade or more know that I keep the injections handy - and I take a healthy dose of Verap. every day all year - I have the big big O2 tank in the hall all year - I have tried a visit to the Portuguese wizard, busting with shrooms, Chinese doctor and herbs - nothing but licorice water for a week, water water water, exercise rapidly, ice on the carotid artery, steroid dose pak, Cluster vitamin regimen, Opioids, benzos, advil, melatonin, a Shaman in the Navajo tradition, Hot water pads, every other god dam thing. In the end; every single cluster cycle required absolute submission to the Beast in varying amounts before I can see the light.

Any triptans will make the next attack you have far worse. Guaranteed by the way it works. Triptans will allow the cycle to continue and get worse. You get short term relief but long term continuation. After ending ten years of conting pills, I went cold turkey and suffered for two weeks. Then all the attacks amazingly got weaker and weaker. Then I went 15 months without any attacks! Shadows yes, aura yes, but no pain. Opioids will give you a rebound hangover like headache as well. Triptans will rock you so bad when they wear off. All triptans are released from the k receptor at almost the same time, this sets you up for the worst possible pain you can receive in your life. All receptors open at once = full scale pain. You want these receptors blocked by LSD or psilocybin then you get five to seven days of pain free. Then you block the, again. As many times as it takes for your slow body clock t get back on schedule. This will take weeks. Maybe busting 1x a week for five or ten weeks. Whatever it takes for you. Just bust and save your life and quit these meds. The meds will totally screw up your busting too so you have to quit for a week at least. Stop triptans now. They will set you up for disaster and continuous headache cycle. You are fooling yourself if you think they are helping. Read revised my lean theory in theory and implantation to learn more about why they are bad.

You are correct that Sumatriptan is essentially DMT with a sulfur molecule added on, but they are in essence very different drugs with very different effects. (water is essentially just hydrogen with 2 oxygen molecules added on, but you will have quite a different experience if you drink a glass of hydrogen compared to a glass of water.) As far as synthetic vs non-synthetic, you can have synthetic DMT that is made in a laboratory or you can have natural DMT that you have extracted from a plant. Both are still DMT. DMT may or may not be helpful for your friends headaches but unfortunately the only way she would be able to know is if she tried it. -Ricardo

Well, I know nothing about this myself. Ricardo is probably the person you'd like to hear from. Here's what a ClusterBusters FAQ says about DMT: "DMT (dimethyl tryptamine) is a very potent hallucinogen found in many plants and animals; it’s even present in the human brain. There are a few reports of its use to treat clusters with good success. But this hallucinogen is powerful. Its effects are so intense, bizarre and outrageous, it’s not recommended as a cluster treatment." We're more about cluster headaches here than migraines, although there's evidence that tryptamines work on migraines as well as on CH. Lots can be found on the internet by googling DMT and migraine, generally seeming to conclude that DMT often helps, but sometimes (going directly back to your question) makes it worse. Unfortunately, for some reason the search engine here at this site won't search for three-letter items. I suppose if your friend was going to try a tryptamine to abort, maybe she would want to start with a less dramatic one, like LSA or psilocybin. But I'm just guessing, as I'm sure you can tell.

I-J, I'm not sure how to reply to this. By "plant extractions" do you mean psychoactive substances? If so . . . they can be effective as an abortive during an attack (a cluster headache attacks, at least; I can't say for sure about a migraine), but they're commonly used to prevent future attacks rather than to abort attacks. I have no idea whether tryptamines would have the same effect on her as triptans. No real reason I know of to think they would.