Bejeeber

Well hopefully now that you've brought up the severity of her attacks after alcohol, she'll start monitoring this herself, and if she sees an alcohol/severity correlation I would think/hope that like most of us she'll drop the booze like a hot potato until she's sure it no longer has an effect.

I'm with TakinItEz on that, and on an air related note, there's a cheap abort that can work for some of us some of the time: The deep breathing of freezing air through the nose at onset of attack. It actually works as well as O2 for me in the first week of an episode before the intensity of my hits has ramped up and while I'm often awaiting my O2 cylinders. It can be particularly easy to try this this time of year in many areas of course (just step outside!), but if you're in a warmer area, the trick is to hop into the car, engine running, blast the air conditioner on max cold, put shnozola up to main vent and go at it. Should take 10 minutes or so, and if successful, the welcome in comparison sensation of an ice cream headache may take over momentarily - with CH aborted.

Agreed that O2 is absolutely the safest abortive. It can be very effective too. Banish any concerns about lung damage - they are misplaced (just avoid using a "bubbler" with O2 flow above 15 LPM). And Imitrex is controversial to be sure. Personally I've used it since it came out, and used it occasionally during my last episode when the O2 wasn't available or effective enough. This was a 2.5 month episode where I was able to prevent or abort every single attack - a pretty rare accomplishment, but I've been at it 30+ years, did a ton of research, and also got lucky. My hope now is to not have to even mess with abortives anymore, now that I'm busting with mushrooms as a preventative. I'd suggest putting all your primary focus on getting high flow/non rebreather O2 as outlined here: http://www.clusterheadaches.com/O2/index.html and then moving on to preventative decisions after that. Typically we have to order a high flow O2 regulator and an "optimask" online in order to acquire an O2 system that will be most effective at aborting attacks quickly, so that's something to hop on ASAP. [Edit:] I've been thinking about this, and although most of us have followed the directive at the link supplied to put together hi flow regulator and optimask components, there's another, simpler, reportedly more surefire way to go that is briefly mentioned in the link: a "demand valve" system. it is assumed that people don't want to spend the extra money on one, but the highest CH O2 guru, "Batch" uses one, and they apparently can lend themselves more to portability too. Giussepi who is a very regular contributor over at the ch.com message board was a patrol police officer for many years, and would carry an E tank with demand valve in his cruiser. If an attack hit he'd just pull over, breathe the O2 for 5 minutes, then he'd be right back on patrol. Wanted to mention that in case you can afford one, because I'm getting the impression that it is an option that is too often overlooked. Your son is going through some hellish times to be sure, with a level of pain that most people will fortunately never know, but with a wonderful mom like you assisting he'll be just fine - really, and especially encouraging is the fact that we're figuring out much better ways to deal with these nowadays. His life'll be good.Â

I second that. Wholeheartedy. And don't be surprised to see some results. Here's hoping.Â

LOL! ;D Gallows humor like this can be stress relieving and therapeutic IMO - I felt a little stress jump right offa me just from reading through this topic.Â

I haven't researched this so I'm just shooting from the hip here 8-), but when you look at what Mushrooms and LSD have in common, isn't it mainly the hallucinogenic properties, and would that be an argument for hallucinogenic properties most likely being the main thing in mushrooms that helps CH?

;D ;D

Good point Alleyoop - heck my wife aborts her migraines with energy drinks now because I suggested she try it (not that an energy drink would actually abort a CH attack for me).

When I first started using O2 in the 1980's (!!) I was somehow able to abort many attacks with a nasal canula. That stopped working at all though after awhile, so I agree that you'd be wise to start ordering your non rebreather mask now. I found at my last peak cycle when the wake up attacks were coming on really hot'n heavy that I would be routinely be reawakened with a rebound 1 hour after using O2. I probably should've stayed on it longer, as Kaboom suggested above.

Booze and occasionally some fumes like bleach or cigarette smoke. Haven't tried chocolate covered bacon and I don't believe I will. ;D [Edit] Mulerider's post below reminded me that I should list sleep - definitely including naps - as a trigger, along with meditation. :-[

I was on gabapentin/neurontin during my last 2.5 month episode. I started off at 900 mg day, then after a couple weeks, on the advice of a neurologist, built it up to 2400 mg day. It turned out to be an essential component in my arsenal, as it kicked in right around the time my episode was going into very high gear, threatening to hit me with more attacks per day than I could keep up with (it can take around 5-9 days to really kick in). It seemed to cut the number of attacks per day by about 30% - 50%, which wasn't exactly a miracle result, but was something I really needed. For me the wooziness side effect wore off after a couple weeks.

Update: Well I was awakened by a sustained K4 or so this morning, which I still consider a shadow and which in and of itself is nothing to fret about of course when compared to a high kip CH hit. My concern is just that strengthening intensity/longer duration shadows could be forewarnings of a full blown episode trying to ramp up. So I think I'll head back on over to the mushroom dosing side of the fence in a few days, as I don't really have the patience to try to figure out anymore what the right RC dose might be for me, what sort of potency these particular seeds have, and whether RC is even something that I will respond to at this point in time. My couple of mushroom doses over the summer knocked all my shadows out immediately, and kept 'em away for a good while.

For cold air aborts, if its not freezing outside, I prefer jumping in the car, putting nose right up to blasting/freezing air conditioner vent, and deep breathing. Granted, it is much more comfortable to do in the hot summer months. I don't know why I didn't think of also holding ice cubes in my mouth on the cluster side at the same time, but if I find myself attempting cold air aborts again, I'll certainly be trying that.

My report: This batch was pretty plump and light brown looking (which is a good sign I imagine?). A couple nights ago before bed I drank the juice and pulp of 52 or so seeds, having ground and started them soaking several hours earlier. I had my now traditional one minute of nausea while lying in bed, and that's the last thing I remember - I was out like a light for a good 5 hours or so - never felt any other effects. I've been having a few somewhat pronounced but really short shadows since - like just a couple minutes or less each. Sorry I don't have any concrete conclusions to draw regarding alkaloids/effectiveness of this RC - my shadows do seem to be behaving a bit differently so far.

Dang. FWIW I just received my order for 100 seeds for $15 from psychoactiveherbs.com, and just as with iamshaman, significantly more than 100 were supplied.

I emailed pyschoactiveherbs.com and asked about the source of the seeds. Here's an encouraging excerpt from the reply: "We import these seeds... very high quality..." Although the exact location they're from hasn't been disclosed - it could still be from the climate and soil of Asia (?), which I suppose wouldn't be a good thing.

Alrighty then, I've ordered from pyschoactiveherbs.com and will give them a shot. I too suspect that growing climates and soils make a huge difference, and wish we could get some RC that is guaranteed grown in the right part of Mexico. Thanx peeple. 8-)

I've always taken mine right before bed, and have always gotten them from Iamshaman. There was a certain batch that would consistently cause me to experience just about exactly one minute of nausea before falling asleep, but the latest batch I got has caused no nausea. Like others who I've seen comment over at CH.com, I find I sleep well while under the influence of 45-50 seeds, and am not aware of any tripping sensations. I thought I saw someone remark that green was a good color for them, denoting freshness...? More recently I try to weed out any black ones. In the past couple of years the RC I've been ordering hasn't seemed to be doing much of anything for me, so I'm now wondering if it is a potency issue. I found it necessary to go to the "big guns" (psilocybe) when my shadows continued to escalate over the summer, threatening to launch into a full blown episode, and that knocked 'em down good. Now that a few mild shadows are popping up I figured I might try the RC again for the heckuvit, since there's no big sense of urgency at the moment.

Thanks Bonkers/MJ/Kaboom. Well dagnabbit! > MJ - did you conclude that there were no alkaloids based on their lack of effect after ingestion, or by some scientific laboratory-ish kinda testing? Kaboom - have you felt any results from the ones ordered from psychoactiveherbs.com?

Bumping for freshness. ;D

...."very mild and quickly aborted with O2"... YES! [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

Incredible article and video! "once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate"

Any advice on who offers the best quality RC seeds in the US? I remember seeing someone talk awhile back about how they found a vendor with especially "fresh" RC seeds, but I'm not pulling up anything about it when I try to go back and search it out.....

Whoa - I was just wishing that such a thing existed today, since my wife aborts migraines with energy drinks, but responds badly to the aspartame or sugar - thanks for the hedzup davidj! Gonna go see if it can be ordered online.....

The never wishing it on anyone thought has certainly occurred to me too, especially when at high cycle. That does sound like a brutal, brutal night. > Please just ignore this next bit if I or others have already been over it with you ad naseum, but I'm trying to remember if you've tried the "Batch" PH optimization, or hyperventilation for max O2 effectiveness?