CHfather

Thanks, Lt2. I saw your handle on the list of people who were at the site a few days ago, and immediately wondered what you and your always-curious mind were doing these days. Now we know! Looking forward to meeting you at the conference.

And thanks so much for letting us know!

I'm sad to report that Acetium doesn't seem to be helping my daughter, after about ten days of taking it. She feels like maybe her attacks have become worse since she started it (though as you all know, there's no way to conclude cause and effect in this situation), so she's going to discontinue it, at least for a while. Disappointed.

 Well, there are lots of treatments that help, in addition to busting, and it doesn't seem reasonable to me to think that they all involve acetaldehyde. Hey, maybe they do -- I'm not saying you're wrong, and I greatly value your research and thinking about this, but maybe dealing with acetaldehyde is just another treatment pathway, or maybe it works at a deeper level, closer to the cause, as a preventive (assuming that Acetium will continue to be shown to work in either way, as a treatment or as a preventive). As I think about this, I realize that I have no idea why/how psychedelics treat CH. In his post on the topic over in the CB files, TommyD writes >>We don't know how this works. There is informed speculation on how such small amounts of substances can overcome such large headaches, but there is much to be learned. It’s serious neurology, of course, Some ideas seem to center on the way tryptamines constrict blood vessels; others involve the way the indole-ring molecule of the tryptamines fits into seratonin receptors.<< Do we know more than this now?

The thread from which didgens has extracted this passage is here: https://mycotopia.net/topic/72016-extracted-lsa-converted-to-lsd/Â I have to admit that I have practically no idea what any of these posters are talking/arguing about, but (a) others seem to disagree with this poster, who is responding to a post by "Defiance" in which Defiance disagreed with someone about the role of acetaldehyde in certain LSA extractions (I think); ( these folks are pretty funny in their sparring.

No, not really. Hers are quite regular, mid-summer and mid-winter. We had hoped that maybe the big barometric changes happening where she lives might have brought on this cycle or at least made it worse, and that it might abate when the changes stopped or slowed down, but no luck -- it's her usual cycle.

Tony, with apologies if you have already answered this somewhere else . . . How much Acetium are you taking, and on what kind of schedule? Is there any consensus among the people you know about dosage and timing, or does it seem to vary from person to person? I'm assuming it's pretty much entirely a preventive for you all, not an abortive. Thank you!

Siouz, I am also very glad that you're feeling better. I understand why you want to give it a go without the meds. Not so much about postponing busting (except I have the sense that you don't really trust seeds after your last experience and you don't have access to MM (and you're a lawyer)). But it's not clear to me why you wouldn't give the licorice root and/or D3 a try (or at least get your D level tested, which I assume wouldn't be too hard for you to arrange given your work location). These things make a difference for a lot of people, and a big difference for some people, and they're safe (done properly), legal, and probably even just generally good for you.

Sweeter words were never spoken (or written, I guess).

We ordered some today and my daughter, who is episodic and in cycle, will start taking it as soon as it arrives (Saturday or Monday). Will let you know.

siouz, I was very sorry to see your name show up here again. I remember what you went through last time. My heart goes out to you. You tried almost everything, so thoroughly. Even indomethacin, which "shouldn't" have worked, but gave you some relief for a while. I'm just going to say some things here, hoping there might be something helpful, or a reminder of something that might help. Mostly, just a way of reaching out. The only "major" thing that's worked for a lot of people here that I don't think you tried last time is licorice root. Here are the instructions for that. You could probably pick some up and start it right away, if you don't have any of the contraindicated medical conditions. https://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1298659068 Of course, you'll be getting O2 right away. I'm assuming that will be no problem for you. If it looks like there will be any kind of significant delay, we could guide you through quickly setting up a system using welding oxygen. I know the D3 protocol didn't seem to help you last time, but I'm wondering whether you have had your D levels checked recently. One thing that has been found, I think since the last time you were here, is that sometimes/often a serious D3 loading program, taking very high levels of D3, is needed to get the levels up into the desirable range. The latest version is here: https://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1314134804 I don't remember how energy drinks worked for you last time. Energy shots actually seem to work better for some people--just as much or more caffeine with less hassle to get it down. I think most people would urge you to give busting another chance to help you. I think you'd be starting earlier in your cycle this time than you did last time, and if so, maybe that will lead to better results. If you decide to do seeds and order them from tranceplants.net, you should get the next-day service, because every other shipping method takes a long time. Some newer things: A bunch of people in Finland have had good results with Acetium, which is now in clinical trials to assess its effectiveness in relationship to CH. It's discussed in this thread, and at the bottom of the thread RazorPP gives a link to a place to order it: https://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1403366830/4 This is not a particularly new idea in itself, but a person who had a miserable time with CH reported the other day getting good results with a nutrition/cleanse program. That thread is here: https://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1405203752/0#0 Of course, we're all wary of treatments that are brought to us here with big claims, but in both of those cases they came from long-time members with some serious CH history. I'm just talking here about non-conventional medical things, in part because I feel like you had tried virtually every conventional medicine approach, except for lithium. I know from close experience (and the research reports) that lithium can work, but I fully understand your reluctance to go there. There's a reason that it's usually only prescribed to people with chronic CH. I'm remembering that one or more people here have had some success with a particular kind of nerve-block injection, but I don't remember the specifics. I think Bejeeber remembers the particular type of injections (at facets, as I'm recalling), so maybe he'll clarify that. But obviously these are probably only possible long-term approaches, and we're looking for something that will help you now. Again -- I'm so sorry that you're here, but I'm glad you came here and I'm hopeful that others, wiser than me, will be able to help.

Thanks for the info, Razor. Sorry about the MJ!

Razor, where did you find it on the internet? Thanks. Is the mamajuana a thing of the past for you -- worked for a while and then didn't?

Thanks, H-L. Sad story.

Thanks! May your success continue.

BB, I remember what you've gone through. I'm thrilled that you have found something that works so well for you. We have had other people, from time to time, report on success they have had with nutritional programs. Unless the program is too complicated to describe, and there's no link to it, I think it would be beneficial for you to describe it here at the board. (I guess whatever you would tell people who message you.) That way we'll be able to find it in the future if the subject comes up again and you're hard to reach. Of course, you don't have to do this if you don't want to; it's just a request.

All the more reason that, if only just for his general health, he should be doing the D3 regimen. I'd say that 95% of people who come here have some level of fear about taking RC/LSA. I would say that 99% of them have found their fears to be groundless once they took the seeds. This is not telling you to get more (since, yes, your current ones are too old to be reliable) and get him to take them. Maybe the nature of his CH (Kudrow called it "atypical," if I'm remembering correctly(?)) is such that preventive busting (or busting during a cycle) might not help, or you might never know if it helped. But if you/he wanted to, since he's not desperate, you could start with a small dose, maybe something like 20 seeds (which not long ago was not considered a particularly small dose) or even fewer, see what happens, and gradually work up until you reached a substantial dose that still caused him no effects. If 30 cause no effects, which it most probably won't, you could confidently go up to 40. 40 is probably enough to do the job in (guessing here) 75% of cases. If he has no effects (or no undesirable effects) at 40, you could stop there, or you could try higher. At these levels, increments of 10 seeds are not going to cause significant differences in "psychedelic" effects. (I put psychedelic in quotes because he's more likely to feel a little high, like a couple of beers, than to experience anything trippy.) With surgery, of course, you can't really do that. You're all in from the get-go. I hope your husband is doing okay or better than okay (whatever that might mean in his circumstance). (Maybe you're onto something. Maybe alley's remission was a result (or partly a result) of lots of sunshine boosting his D levels. And, yes, tanning beds also boost D levels.)

didg, i can't see any reason why he shouldn't be doing the D3. he has CH. D3 helps. for that matter, i can't see how preventive busting would hurt, unless you/he object to it for some reason (legal, moral, medical, whatever). i guess the "nerve" is the suggestion that a surgery, with potential severe side effects (and no promise of a "permanent" remission) is a preferable alternative to a strategy that works very well for many people, with no significant side effects (none that are known, in any event).

didg, my own two cents is that even if this works as described (for some people, certainly not all), there's no proof at all that they will be "permanently without pain." permanent is a long time. there are plenty of people at this site who have been basically without pain for long periods (and i think you can assume that there are others who do not hang around here after having achieved excellent results); and there are others who found lasting relief that didn't turn out to be permanent from one strategy or another. if i've been following your son's case correctly, it seems to me that he has tried practically nothing that has helped people here achieve successful long-term results. busting, preventive busting, D3 . . . maybe i'm wrong about that. but there are people here (and people here only rarely, such as brew and tingeling), who credit very long stretches of being pain-free or nearly pain-free to those three elements.

Thank you for following up on that, overit. Dr. Sewell deserves to be known and remembered.

didg, Danny is the son of the clinic founder, Dr. Shevel.

overit, Just so you know something about the history here, Dr. Sewell was a great friend of busters, and of people with CH in general. He died suddenly and unexpectedly last year, very young. He was on the faculty at Yale Medical School. He maintained a CH-related blog (clusterattack.com), and he was very, very generous with his time, with me personally and many others. He is greatly missed.

THMH and overit, A couple of other things about the Sewell poster, which do not contradict THMH's position, but amplify it a little: "93% of subjects ingested LSA in a dose low enough to produce no psychoactive effects." (So, the LSA was working even when there were no effects. But this doesn't change THMH's point that the only way to know for sure that you're getting enough LSA is to feel some effects. It just says that a lot of people who felt no effects still got good results.) All four people who took seeds preventively skipped their next cycle. Two of them sent in samples, and they had taken a lot of LSA: 1.1mg and 2.8mg. This might mean that a preventive dose is better if it's quite strong. (It doesn't necessarily mean that, but it could.) I suppose you (overit) might see how 50 affects you, and maybe if there's no effect, take a stronger dose a week or two later (??). http://clusterheadacheinfo.wdfiles.com/local--files/file%3Asewell-2008-aha-lsa-poster/sewell_2008_aha_lsa_poster.pdf'> http://clusterheadacheinfo.wdfiles.com/local--files/file%3Asewell-2008-aha-lsa-poster/sewell_2008_aha_lsa_poster.pdf

overit, THMH and I have different perspectives on this. I'll give you mine; you can decide. [i see he just responded to you while I was writing my post. I agree with what he says there, and I am in some ways just restating it here, at greater length.] Of course he is right that unless you have some kind of psychedelic experience, you won't know for certain that you received LSA. But we have had many people use seeds from the standard recommended vendors who have not had any level of psychedelic experience but who still have achieved results that say there was LSA in there. Those results range from remission to the slapbacks that pretty convincingly show that the seeds were having an effect. I also go back to Dr. Sewell's [RIP] seed testing (seeds sent to him by busters). Although there were wide variations in the amount of LSA in both types of seeds (RC and HBWR), all the RC his lab tested had some LSA in it (it was only in one sample of HBWR that he found zero LSA). My own belief is that if you take at least 50 float-tested RC seeds you are very likely to get a sufficient dose of LSA. You could almost certainly take more, if you wanted to. Our principle here has generally been to take the lowest amount feasible -- enough to treat your CH with minimal psychedelic effects. That's because we're in the CH-treatment arena here, not the tripping arena. But if you're comfortable with the possibility of a trip, by all means go ahead and take more. It can't hurt (and, to be honest, you probably wouldn't have a serious trip even with 80 seeds).    Â

Whole article (source at end): >>Psychedelic drugs alter consciousness in a profound and novel way that increases the breadth and fluency of cognition. However, until recently, we were unable to offer an explanation for how the brain was altered to account for these effects. In a new study, published in Human Brain Mapping, we scanned the brains of volunteers who had been injected with psilocybin – the chemical found in magic mushrooms which gives a psychedelic experience – and a control group who hadn’t, and discovered two key things: that psilocybin increased the amplitude (or “volume”) of activity in regions of the brain that are reliably activated during dream sleep and form part of the brain’s ancient emotion system; and that psychedelics facilitate a state of “expanded” consciousness – meaning that the breath of associations made by the brain and the ease by which they are visited is enhanced under the drugs. Ego and emotion This finding of a similar pattern to dream activity is intriguing. While the psychedelic state has been previously compared with dreaming, the opposite effect has been observed in the brain network from which we get our sense of “self” (called the default-mode network or ego-system). Put simply, while activity became “louder” in the emotion system, it became more disjointed and so “quieter” in the ego system. Evidence from this study, and also preliminary data from an ongoing brain imaging study with LSD, appear to support the principle that the psychedelic state rests on disorganised activity in the ego system permitting disinhibited activity in the emotion system. And such an effect may explain why psychedelics have been considered useful facilitators of certain forms of psychotherapy. We also looked at the range of connectivity configurations – or “motifs” – in the emotion system and found that a broader range of motifs emerged under psilocybin, and this effect began with the onset of the drug’s psychological effects. This is an entirely novel analysis and its validity needs to be further tested – but it may offer an initial insight into the biological basis of the often described consciousness-expansion that is one of the hallmarks of a psychedelic experience. Building a picture Our research into the brain effects of psychedelic drugs began at the University of Bristol in 2009 and continues today at Imperial College London and Cardiff University. We were interested in the idea that psychedelics facilitate communication across the brain and, more specifically, how the default-mode network in the brain, arguably science’s best biological correlate of the self, normally works to constrain this. Our first study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, revealed decreases in brain activity after injection of psilocybin that were localised to the default-mode network. This finding was exciting because it synched with the idea that psychedelics cause temporary “ego dissolution”, in other words – diminishing one’s sense of having a firm and enduring personality. Our new research adds to our understanding about how this happens. Understanding the brain mechanisms that underlie enhanced cognitive fluency under psychedelics may offer insights into how these drugs may be psychologically useful, for example in helping patients experience an emotional release in psychotherapy, and also potentially enhancing creative thinking.<< Author: Robin Carhart-Harris. Post-doctoral Researcher, Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London Disclosure Statement: Robin Carhart-Harris's research received financial and intellectual support from the Beckley Foundation as part of a wider Beckley-Imperial psychedelic research programme. https://theconversation.com/magic-mushrooms-expand-your-mind-and-amplify-your-brains-dreaming-areas-heres-how-28754