Bonkers

Hi Clustermom13, Good to hear Andrew is doing so well. It's taken a long time but you two have stuck it out and are now in the process of reclaiming Andrew's life. I'm sooo happy for you both. Hurray! hurray! Your friends, Mike and Ron

Tingeling, sometimes you just break my heart.

I can't get .5g in a 00 capsule. Just over .3g. Not much more.

A wise man once told me that at times the only way he can get through the day is by helping someone else get through theirs.

Hi Gaius, I suppose some sub-species are more potent than others but I don't think enough to matter. I asked at one of the psychedelic mushroom growing sites about testing potency and was almost not taken seriously. The best answer I got was: "i test mine using a tek developed long ago by some hippies. take about three grams of cracker dry shrooms and put them in a blender and then add 8 oz. of orange juice and then blend thoroughly. guzzle. wait twenty minutes and then lay down in a dark room and wait for Quezacotl. if Q. doesn't arrive then adjust dose accordingly." Ron

Thanks, Alleyoop for your good wishes. Your vision of our future is exactly ours.

Hi All, This board has become an odd sort of home where folks who are connected by the same familial, genetic defect can come together to share successes and failures, commiserate with those having a particularly nasty time of it, pass on what we've learned that can help others and in general learn how to manage this awful disease together. I'm proud to be associated with all of you. If we had never found this site, my son could very well be dead and I very likely would have fallen over the edge. We love you guys. Together, in the not too distant future, we're gonna win. We're gonna learn how to comfortably manage these HAs for anyone who drops in with a desire to eliminate CHs from their lives. We'll be able to ask the right questions, provide the right answers and suggest the right remedies. We're getting there. Ron Btw - Michael just finished 7-1/2 days of total PF time. He's still not sure it's come back so we're waiting till he's sure b4 we dose again. 7-1/2 days and maybe more. Cool, huh? Like I said above: we're getting there.

They're lots of folks here who know what it feels like. Most have contributed what they've learned, after many years of suffering, about things that ease and in many cases eliminate the pain. Read and ask questions. Everybody wants to help.

Sorry. No need to read and read. Just 1 read should suffice.

Hi Gaius, Welcome. I'm glad you found us. Scroll over the "menu" button at the upper left corner of this page and read and read the ClusterBusters Warning. Then read the "psilocybin files" and "mushroom FAQ" in the "ClusterBuster Files" General Category of this forum. Reading those should generate some questions that the folks here will be happy to answer. That should get you started. Good luck, Ron

Hi Jeff, Low doses are advised for inexperienced busters to avoid the fear that can often accompany a large dose for a 1st timer. It's also for many all that is needed. Take as much as you're comfortable with, not so much to "go for the gold" since busting usually requires more than a single dose, but because a larger dose is more likely to produce a change in your CH. Detoxing beforehand typically produces a more positive effect on your CHs but don't avoid attempting to bust if that's impossible. Give it a shot. If it doesn't work, then detox or detox as much as you can before trying it again. Good luck, Ron p.s. - Sorry for neglecting to mention the oxygen. It's worth the wait till you've got it if you detox before you dose.

Good luck AO from one of your many fans.

Hi Jeff, Before dosing, read as much here as you will and become familiar with the process. Basically, you need "cracker dry" mushrooms. You can grind them into a powder in your coffee grinder and put them into capsules or make a tea out of them or just pop 'em in your mouth, chew 'em up and swallow 'em. You should start out with a small dose, say 1.5 grams. Keep a log of your experiences with your HAs over the next week and dose again with the same 1.5 grams if it was effective. By effective, I mean did it cause any change in your experience of your HAs. If not, and if you didn't notice any psychological effects in the hours after dosing, up the dose by about .5 grams. Continue upping the dose every 7 days by .5 grams until you're sure that you've had psychological effects from the dosing and no changes in your experience of your HAs. If that occurs, you're probably not a good candidate for this treatment. When you get a change in your HA experience, positive or negative, repeat the dosing at 1 week intervals for 3 doses. You may well find that, at the end of your 3 week experiment, you've either "busted" or found that the severity of your HAs has substantially decreased or the frequency substantially increased. Please continue to post to this forum throughout your dosing experience. Not only will someone here more than likely be able to answer your questions but your experience will provide us with extremely valuable data. You're becoming part of a program that we're all involved in that is still in its infancy. I hope it works for you and you remain a contributing member of our new "I-used-to-have-cluster-headaches" club. Ron

I don't get cluster headaches but I do know about stiff, crunchy necks since having 4 of the 7 vertebrae in mine together with the first thoracic vertebrae fused together into a solid block. With me, it's where I manifest my tension. It's a protective response where I hunch up my shoulders and tense up my neck muscles. Do that for 30 or 40 years and you destroy the discs which separate and cushion the vertebrae. The crunching sound is bone rubbing on bone.

Thanks for the info, AO.

CArl, You say "even one half gram of mushrooms could contain as much as a six gram recreational dose." Do you mean that the mushrooms vary in potency enough that "even one half gram..." or am I misunderstanding you? Ron

I'd like to second tingeling's expression of gratitude toward CArl and other pioneers who had the courage to stand behind this amazing treatment before anybody knew about it and when everybody was afraid of it. What huge balls! Forever thanks.

MJ, your post made my day. It was one of the very few times in my life when I've felt like a minor celebrity. My debt of gratitude to you, for all you've done, means you'll never owe me an apology. It's too bad - and in a sense, sad - that we need to be so cautious. At some point in the near future we may have to test the waters and push the legality issue with the intention of getting noticed. A test case may be required to allow us to more openly produce and share these substances for our extremely limited needs. None of us know how far in the future it's going to be before BOL is available by prescription. It could be many years. In the meantime, the fact that these activities are illegal is preventing the vast majority of CH sufferers from taking advantage of - or even being aware of - the best CH medicine that has ever discovered by far!

Always good advise Potter, thanks. Wha's an azzhat?

Hi Darrin, Scary question. I hadn't stopped to wonder what might happen if any of our shrooming activities became semi-public knowledge. I've been assuming - stupidly - that since those activities are so clearly unselfish and necessary regardless of their legality, that the powers that be would simply look the other way and reluctantly allow them. I've also been assuming that the agencies that enforce drug laws are both under-funded and under-staffed; that we're small potatoes to them and they'd rather use what resources they do have to pursue bigger fish. That may well be extremely naive. Maybe someone on this board with legal or police or DEA ties would know just how dangerous what we're doing is. Ron

Hi Dave O, AO's advice is spot on that "there's a lot more to it than just consuming a handful of mushrooms." Also, that you should first get a "for sure diagnosis" of CH before proceeding. There's a lot of info both here and on http://www.clusterheadaches.com/wwwboard2/index.html that will better acquaint you with this condition and prepare you to knowledgeably talk to your doctor(s) about it. See a specialist, either a Neurologist or a Pain Specialist who's practice involves treating a number of headache patients. You can find this out on the phone when talking to his/her staff if they know what you're talking about when you say that you may have CH. The treatments discussed on this forum have been of enormous benefit to many CH sufferers and may be of benefit to you. But first you need to get a "for sure diagnosis" and then learn what you can about CH before proceeding. Ron

It sure sounds like a lotta fun, Denny. I wish we could make it. It'll happen one of these times.

Get the oxygen and learn how to use it properly. It will be your main line of defense regardless of which medicines your pain specialist who knows all about cluster headaches or your neurologist who knows all about cluster headaches or your headache specialist who knows all about cluster headaches and you who will soon learn all about cluster headaches together decide are appropriate for you. Do not make an appointment with anyone until you are clear about their qualifications to treat you.

The psychedelic experience is attractive enough in its own right that I doubt we'll ever see it disappear. I too look back on the '60s and '70s fondly. I remember taking drugs that I didn't even know the names of. Those were fun times. But I don't want to go back. I'm not much closer to enlightenment now than I was in my 20's - but I am closer. Part of that may be do to tripping in the '60s and '70s; I don't know, I think I'd give the edge to time and the normal experiences of life. Some may consider tripping to be a side-benefit of taking these substances to treat their CH. That's cool. But anyone who busts their CHs with psychedelics and finds the hallucinatory aspect of that experience to be the most wondrous part of it - well, I'm afraid that they just didn't have CH to begin with. I would like us to consider our use of psychedelic drugs to bust CHs as a stopgap. An effective stopgap that we must use and provide to others to use to bust their CHs until the scientific/medical community comes up with BOL or something like it at a price point that makes it available to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world that has CH. Until that happens, we're just gonna hafta grow our own medicine 'cause nothing else works.

Please, please, I don't want to fight - just to maybe add a little information. And, I don't mean to be petty. I just think it's interesting to note that oxygen is NOT explosive. It's not even flammable. It supports the combustion of things that are flammable. A spark in the presence of a lot of oxygen and a bunch of stuff that's flammable is what creates an explosion.