Ricardo

This conference was nothing short of amazing. I managed to attend every talk that was presented. I met Dennis Mckenna and got him to sign my book and we talked clusterbusters a little bit. Gotta thank Bob Wold and all our other Clusterbuster folks that have done the work they have done to get our name out there--we are well known and accepted. (I also had a funny moment with Dennis McKenna watching his jaw drop when he asked me "so do you take sub-threshold amounts to bust? "well...no, when I'm in a bad cycle I take 8 -9 grams of mushrooms once a week for 3 weeks then take a week off.." He looked at me in astonishment and said "You do this EVERY WEEK?") I think I intrigued him enough that I may be able to get some good personal communication with him. I am certainly going to try. As far as neurobiology and the actions of psychedelics, most of what I heard was not new to me. There was one speaker who was the exception--Clint Canal (http://www.northeastern.edu/bouve/hs/facultydirectory.php?action=details&id=470) brought out a whole lotta info that I had never heard before. Dennis McKenna thanked him for the presentation and said that it was the most up to date info he had seen. They recorded the whole conference in HD and it is going to be available soon, I highly recommend checking it out. I also recorded the whole conference with just audio, I'm going to go back and listen to his talk and see what info I can get out of it as I was on a pretty heavy amount of Ketamine that day and some things are a bit fuzzy. The thing that Clint Canal showed that really kinda amazed me was when he put up a slide showing a map of where in the brain receptors are being hit with different drugs He showed a couple different drugs but the two that he really spent some time on was the comparison of ketamine to psilocybin. Almost identical, so almost that you could almost just say identical. He went on to say that he thought he had entered the info wrong, that he must have entered the same drug twice, but it turned out he had not. EXTREMELY similar metabolic changes are happening with Psilocybin and Ketamine. Interesting indeed! Unfortunately there was very little info on Clusters. The "good doctor Lex Pelger" who was one of the hosts (check him out online!) started talking about it a bit but he had a good bit of info wrong and someone told him so and he kinda gave up. In between talks I talked with him a bit and he very much wants to talk with me to get more info, which I am going to do. Towards the end of the conference one of the organizers (Brett Greene) said "We all need to help each other. I am here to help you in whatever way I can, let me know." I talked with him at the end of the conference and told him I was going to take him up on his offer, that us Cluster headache sufferers need help, specifically in getting the info out about our disease and the ability of hallucinogens to tame the beast. He was very receptive and we are going to talk a good bit more. He is in Mass so this should not be hard. Truthfully, I would not be surprised if I ended up giving a talk on clusters and hallucinogens (and maybe some other things )at next years conference. They seem determined to have more conferences and with the reception that they got it would make sense. I am feeling really really great about the way things are going in our society in regards to these drugs lately, and I am gearing up to get heavily involved. I will keep people updated as to my interactions with all these folks. http://www.psymposia.com/ -Ricardo

Thought I would share... Dear Health New England, I am writing to you because I have been extremely dissatisfied with the level of service that your company has provided me. I am a chronic cluster headache sufferer. Cluster headache has been deemed the “most painful condition known to man” and I get them every day. Every day of every month of every year I get these “headaches”, although calling them headaches does no justice to the sufferers who are afflicted with this disease. The most accurate way that I can describe it is to imagine that someone has your eye in their hand and is squeezing it, trying to pop it like a grape.         The first thing that your company has done that is inexcusable is not paying for a doctor that is qualified to treat me. I know that you have said that you have headache specialists within your plan, but none of them have ever proven that they actually know what they doing. The only way that they can do this is by going through the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties. This is the only certification that a physician can do to show that they actually know what they are talking about when it comes to headache medicine and you have no doctor that has gone through this. All it takes is a quick talk with most headache specialists to find out the unfortunate truth about Cluster Headaches, that even headache specialists only get taught a good 10 minutes of cluster headache information while they are being trained. Maybe you have a doctor who is different, but you have no way of proving that and I do not feel like taking the gamble to see if your doctor who has in no way proven his ability to treat patients like me can actually treat me effectively. I have a Neurologist that has gone through this certification but you refuse to pay for him, because you put profits ahead of actual care. Luckily he is a compassionate person who gives me a break on his fees because he knows how horrible this disease is and also now knows the truth—that before I was going to him I was in the Emergency room once a month and that now, almost 4 years later I have not had to go once. The second thing that your company has done that I find completely inexcusable is that you refuse to pay for the proper amount of medication that my doctor has prescribed. The medication is Sumatriptan injections and I have been prescribed 6 shots every month, but your company will only pay for 4. I get 30 days a month of pain and I only ask for what my doctor has prescribed, 6 days of relief for the times when these headaches get unbearably bad. Your company has insisted that they know the situation better than my neurologist and say that I should be on a different medication, one that costs your company much less than the medication that has been prescribed. The idea that your company has tried to force down my throat is that I should be on “preventative” medication instead. That would be a great idea if they had a good reputation for working and would not be very bad for my overall health and wellbeing. These options range from toxic anti-psychotics like Lithium or Zyprexa to blood pressure medication like verapamil. (although I should not neglect to mention that you have made it very clear that you will pay for as much addictive narcotic medication that I can get a doctor to prescribe) The thing is, I’m not psychotic, and I don’t feel like I should have to go on a toxic medication that will zombify me and make it so that I have to continuously be checked to make sure that my kidneys are not failing. That’s just the Lithium though, the Zyprexa can theoretically give me long lasting Tardive Dyskinesia from just one dose along with a slew of other horrible side effects. There is also that Verapamil blood pressure option that has been repeatedly recommended by your company “doctors” (I dispute the claim that they are true doctors because real doctors have taken an oath to “do no harm” not “do no harm unless it’s going to profit the company that I work for”) but the thing is that I do not have high blood pressure, I have almost low blood pressure. A cardiologist I met with said that he could not put me on a high dose of it because with my blood pressure it would end up making me very very tired.  I’m sure you could come up with a bunch of more options that would do me no good but would be good economically for your company but I don’t feel like being your company’s guinea pig and I actually want to keep myself productive and live my life fully. All I have asked for is for you to pay for what my qualified neurologist has recommended—6 shots of Sumatriptan a month, but you will only pay for 4. This makes it so that I have to pay out of pocket $175 for the extra 2 shots and this is not ok. Truthfully I do not understand how people that make these decisions sleep at night, you are ruining lives and most definitely giving inadequate care to people that severely need it. I would say I look forward to your response, but it would not be true. I have explained all this to your company in detail and have only been met with a stonewall resistance to treat my condition effectively. At this point I want as little to do with your company as possible and as a business owner who will be very shortly looking into health insurance options for our employees this will most definitely be taken into consideration. I will also be making this an open letter that will be posted on my Facebook page to make sure that as many people as possible are aware of this situation. Ricardo (edited because I accidentally "outed" myself...as in no, my name is not actually Ricardo ) Cluster Headache Sufferer

This looks amazing... 2 day conference for only $20 if you get your tickets now. Worth it just for the screening of Neuron's to Nirvana and the talk by Dennis Mckenna. http://www.psymposia.com/

Whenever I get the money and time this is what I'm going to use... http://organicalcohol.com/store/index.php/organic-cane-alcohol-1-gallon 190 proof pharmaceutical grade cane sugar alcohol. With it being 190 proof you can evaporate the alcohol out of it pretty easily if you want. -Ricardo

It does look interesting.... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23463909 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21613599

Rough. I had a read of a similar report on Pubmed (I'll look for it) of an account where another person had the trigeminal nerve severed and got absolutely no relief. I'm sure there are some people somewhere that this will help, but I sure as hell wouldn't go there. -Ricardo

So....I had a strange experience last year that should be recorded. Strange even for me I had gotten a sun lamp a while back, the kind that you use for Seasonal Affective Disorder. I get a little bit of SAD, but I really wanted to know if it might be able to have any effect on a cluster. You are supposed to use it 20 minutes a day at a certain distance from yourself. BUT... you guys know me, I can tend to over do things sometimes, or at the very least I tend to make sure if do something I really friggin do it. So I set up the lamp a lot closer than you are supposed to, I took the plastic UV filter off of it and used it while I was doing office work on the computer. I did this for at least 3 days, maybe 4. Each day I was probably getting 5-6 hours of light from it, I figured if it's going to work for clusters this will be the way to tell--no chance of under doing it. It did not seem to have much effect on my clusters, but it sure as hell did something.  I got so cracked out it was ridiculous. I had way to much nervous energy, borderline anxiety (which really says something because anxiety is something I rarely rarely experience) I'm pretty sure I annoyed the hell out of every person I met, almost like I had OD'd on caffeine. That in itself is good to know, but then at the end of the week I busted. Holy friggin hallucinations! For at least 2 hours my trip was as if I had smoked DMT. seriously. I was in no way "here" I was surfing the void and completely out of my gourd. Mostly I just laid there with a "WTF is going on?!?" in my head. Colors, shapes, thoughts and the experience itself was completely reminiscent of a heavy DMT trip (but for at least 2 hours, after that it was just a really really strong trip. Probably lasted in total around 10 hours) I had heard people say before (but didn't really buy it) that by sitting in the sun and "loading up" on the stuff that your brain needs to have the hallucinatory experience that you can increase the strength of the hallucinogens that we take. As I said before, I did not believe it but I do now. This info has 2 sides to it--the first, be careful if you are using sun lamps and taking psychedelics...a 2 hour DMT trip is no joke (admittedly I DID take at least 8 grams of mushrooms) The second, this could possibly make it so that people can load up and take less hallucinogens, saving the precious busting material. There is always the chance that just because you are tripping harder it does not mean that you will have better luck busting...but I doubt it. My guess is the harder you trip the better chance you have at resetting the balance in your brain. Good luck and report back if you try this -Ricardo

Joint pain being related to CH does not seem out of the question to me. More specifically, both CH and joint pain could be affected by abnormal serotonin levels. Seeing as how it seems like our serotonin levels are at different levels during cluster periods than non cluster periods and serotonin levels can effect join pain I would not be surprised to see a link between CH pain cycles and joint pain cycles. One study I read found that there was a huge amount of CH'ers who listed clinical depression as the 2nd biggest symptom they have. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/depression-and-joint-pain.html http://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/brainstorm/br6304.htm I don't have much pain besides my clusters so I can't personally answer the question about getting pain relief from Psilo or LSD but it would make sense. Balancing serotonin levels could do it, but I would think that also lowering the inflammatory TNF levels (any drug that hits the 5ht2a receptor "superpotently" lowers TNF levels) would definitely do it. Mama Juana's effect on joint pain (or anything else) or what microdosing amounts of it will do is anybody's guess. I am hopeful that this is something that will really help us, but I encourage people to remember that we've had a handful of people try this who seemed to get help. But that's it. There has been no large groups of people who have tried it and the only person that I have heard of that has taken it for any length of time is the original person that Dallas Denny knows. So far the reports make it seem very promising, but as of right now we don't have enough info our experiences to say this is going to be helpful for most people with CH. (in my opinion) -Ricardo

This was my initial thoughts on this as well, that the one herb that has been reputed to be somewhat psychedelic and is used in ayahuasca recipes is probably the one that is helping us, but now I am not so convinced. For the past couple years I have been researching an interesting idea that I first heard Sasha Shulgin talking about and it is very much rooted in science. The idea is that certain essential oils of certain plants are just one step away from becoming psychedelic amphetamines. Shulgin went on to say that that the process needed to make these essential oils into psychedelics is completely possible in our own body. We make chemical reactions in our body all the time and theoretically, with the help of other substances we could possibly turn these ordinary substances that we consume all the time into psychedelics. Here is a sample from Shulgin's amazing book PIHKAL (phenethylamines I have Known and Loved)- "Elsewhere, I have made comparisons between myristicin and MMDA, and between safrole and MDA. And here there is a similar parallel between elemicin and TMA. What are these relationships between the essential oils and the amphetamines? In a word, there are some ten essential oils that have a three carbon chain, and each lacks only a molecule of ammonia to become an amphetamine. So, maybe these essential oils, or "almost" amphetamines, can serve as an index for the corresponding real amphetamine counterparts. I had originally called this family the "natural" amphetamines, but my son suggested calling them the "essential" amphetamines, and I like that. At the time that I had synthesized TMA, back there in the '50s, I had the impulse to explore this body of Essential Amphetamines. As the old folk-wisdom says: "Nature is trying to tell us something." " For more on Shulgin's ideas on essential oils and the similarity and possibility of turning them into psychedelic amphetamines, read his section on TMA in PIHKAL. https://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal157.shtml I bring all this up because the Mama Juana mix has both Eugenol (from cloves) and Methyl Chavicol (from basil) and these are 2 essential oils that have gotten a good bit of attention for possibly being able to create a psychedelic experience. (Star Anise has also been listed as a possibility along these same lines) I should reword that...There are people that swear that by combining certain essential oils with certain enzyme inhibitors they can get these substances to be psychoactive. This goes along the same lines as ayahuasca, where the DMT usually gets broken down by your MAO A enzyme but the brew contains a MAO A inhibitor, thus making the DMT orally active. This time though we are talking about a very large group of enzymes that are referred to as the CYP450 enzyme systems. There are a huge number of different enzymes in this system, each one metabolizing different things. A good example that you probably have heard of is how grapefruit juice can make certain medications stronger. Grapefruit specifically inhibits the P450 CYP3A4 enzyme, so any drug that is metabolized by this enzyme will end up stronger when taken with it. Here is one persons report on combining Methyl Chavicol (ingredient in the essential oil of basil) with German Chamomile (which supposedly inhibits the CYP1A2 enzyme)- "I tripped on it two days in a row without much tolerance on the second day I dosed. I did 250 mg, and then 300 mg on day two. This time I just used german chamomile with it, nothing else. On the second day I had strong visual effects from 300 mg. It was crappity smackING AWESOME! With my eyes closed I saw shapes shifting, spinning, dancing, it was NICE! My mood, oh man, I kept laughing at everything. All the jokes on TV cracked me up. My serious vibe was totally gone. I felt on top of the world, I kept smiling all day. Dude, all my friends are in shock that we are tipping off of basil and chamomile. They're like DID I DIE AND GO TO HEAVEN? I'm serious man. This stuff is CHEAP. This stuff is NATURAL. This stuff is totally crappity smacking LEGAL. And it's like the best antidepressant I have ever tried." For the full thread on this, read here: http://herbs.mxf.yuku.com/topic/3784181/The-Psychedelic-Effects-of-Sweet-Basil-Oil-Methyl-Chavicol?page=2#.UymfIfldVOE There are quite a few people that have tried these sort of combinations and gotten good results, there are quite a few that have not. To me, it seems an interesting idea but I don't have the time and money to experiment with all this (but maybe YOU do ) so I have put these ideas on the backburner for a while. But this thread has gotten me really interested in it again, because just like we saw how native peoples were way ahead of western medicine with their knowledge of combing plants to make DMT orally active I would not be surprised to find that native peoples have figured out the way to make these essential oils psychoactive. There are a number of plants in this mixture that have not been studied in much detail I do not find it that unlikely that some of these herbs are inhibiting enzymes, making the other ingredients work their magic. Obviously there is the whole point that people have not reported tripping off of mama juana, but at the same time a number of people have reported good results from small amounts of shrooms under the tongue in doses that do not produce psychedelic effects. The alcohol would definitely make these substances hit you pretty fast as well. I agree completely that we should be making individual tinctures with the individual herbs and trying them that way. If the ideas that I have thrown out there are really responsible for the help that people are getting than individually they will do nothing. It could be a combo of just 2 of the herbs, or it could actually take all of them. Experimentation is the only thing that will bring answers. I'm planning on experimenting myself but so many things that bring relief to others do nothing for me so I'm not holding my breath. (It may also take a while for me to get to the experimentation, it has been quite a busy year) I could go on and on for quite a long time but for now I will leave it at this and a word of caution...If you are interested enough to try out the methods listed here with essential oils and inhibiting enzymes you need to remember that these enzymes metabolize medications. If you are on any medications you need to find out how the body is metabolizing them so you will know if you are making them stronger, weaker or having no effect on them. The one that I know off the top of my head is that Sumatriptan is metabolized by MAO A enzyme not CYP450 enzymes so with this kind of thing you are safe there...But also good to remember a line I heard from Terence McKenna where he said that ALL tryptamines are MAO A inhibitors. In my experience this is true, but only at pretty high levels. (On the other hand the psychedelic amphetamine MDMA seems to me to be a pretty decent MAO A inhibitor) Every day we find more info, more clues. This herb mixture definitely has my attention. -Ricardo

I still stick to my original argument- If you are having a dentist that is reluctant to do what you want and need the idea needs to be reinforced that they are performing a service for you. A service you pay for. Numerous numerous people with the affliction that this doctor has never even heard of get hit HARD with one of the most painful condition known to man because of this drug. If you have a dentist that is still arguing with you after you tell them this, in my opinion you have a half rate dentist that is looking to make their job easier at the expense of your health. NOT OK. I have had my dentist skip the ephedrine version for over a year now and had a number of instances where I was in the chair for more than 2 hours. It obviously was harder for my dentist, but not THAT much. It required her to redose me with novicaine a couple times instead of just the once in the beginning. I have had root canals, crowns implanted, chipped teeth and cavities filled all with the non-ephedrine version and it went fine. If your dentist is saying they can't do it or that it's going to be a hassle, ask them (and yourselves) why other dentists can do it but this one can't. -Ricardo

"What happened to yesterday?" "I don't know but you better get to that airport..." Classic -Ricardo

What an awesome article! I can only imagine the feeling of standing on the top of Mt Everest dosed up good. http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v21n1/v21n1-25to29.pdf -Ricardo

For me, dental work seems to give me much more pain than most patients, and almost always gives me a cluster. Now I won't have anything done at all unless I'm on nitrous oxide. No more mouth pain and it completely dissolves a cluster. If I can ever find a way to get a big ass nitrous tank I'm going to. I've looked, but not hard. -Ricardo

I would get tough on him. Tell him that you don't need any damn paperwork or studies to prove anything. You don't want epinephrine, you pay his bills, and therefore he will no longer give you epinephrine or you will find another dentist. Suck it up dentist boy! -Ricardo

Thanks guys. Looking at the shot now that it is thawed out it looks completely fine. I have trouble believing that the low temp would actually chemically change the sumatriptan. I figure it could probably precipitate out of solution, but it does not look cloudy or have particulate in it. I'll shake the hell out of it before I use it, I bet it's fine. Thanks again! -Ricardo

Any one know if it is really unusable if your sumatriptan vial freezes? (The vial did not break) The zipper on my bag busted and my last shot fell out and was left in the car last night, when I woke up it was -6 outside. I read that it is supposed to be stored no lower than 36 degrees and not to use it if it has been frozen and I'm wondering if that is complete BS. I hope so, cause I really can't shell out $150 for the second time in 6 months just to get through these friggin clusters. I was really hoping to bust this weekend, but I never know if I'm going to need a shot when it's done so I never bust without having a shot in the house. This kinda blows... Anybody have any info or experience with frozen shots? -Ricardo

I've bought the Mama Juana mix. Too interesting not to My plan is to soak it in some organic grape alcohol that I use for tinctures. Then I think I'll evaporate half the alcohol out of it (it's 190 proof ), add some grape juice and honey. Interested to see what this stuff does to me. -Ricardo

This is interesting because DMT increases Human Growth Hormone, and I would be surprised to find that Psilocybin did not do the same thing... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8297216

There is a way. If you take the concoction and double boil it you will evaporate most of the alcohol out. If you really wanted to make sure the alcohol is out I would double boil it until it is thick and hardly has any liquid left. You can always add water or glycerine back to it afterwords. You want to double boil it as opposed to just boil it so that you are not damaging active drugs that might be sensitive to heat. I would try the lowest boil you can, if you have the time to wait for it to be done. I am not completely convinced that it will help though. Red wine is a big trigger for people with migraines I would not doubt if it's the same with clusters. Whether it is the tannins, the sulfites or some unknown something made in fermentation is not known, but it sure seems like it is NOT the alcohol. Migrainers that get hit by red wine often times do not with other alcoholic products. by doing a double boil method you will get rid of the alcohol but not much else. I am beginning to think the same with me. It seems like fermented wines, meads and other naturally fermented drinks are more likely to set me off than hard alcohol like Tequila. -Ricardo

According to a book I have Petiveria alliacea is used by the Shipibo-Conibo as an ayahuasca additive. They say it has "hallucinogenic properties" and esteem it as a "master teacher of the healing arts" Supposedly the active constituents are nineteen different coumarins, isoarboriol, triathiolan, and trithiolaniacine. And no, I do not have any idea what the hell any of that does Illicium Verum is Star Anise. Reputed to have enzyme inducing properties that can make some drugs stronger. This could be a helpful ingredient to get the rest of the stuff doing something. The Bohuco Pega Palo (Cissus verticillata) has androgenic properties. Possibly boosting testosterone, Whatever it is doing it sounds like a pretty effective herbal viagra. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2641584/ Albahaca (Ocimum basilicum) is basil. Some repute it's essential oil to be psychoactive. Debatable. Although I will say, that the few people that have said it is psychoactive say that you have to take it with other things that induce or inhibit different enzymes. Maybe this mixture makes basil psychoactive. Cloves have a reputation as being a pontentiator of psychedelics and possibly psychoactive on their own. The Maguey is an agave whose juice is typically fermented kind of like tequila. I can not find any info on properties of the leaves. I can't really find much for info on Canelilla (Cinnamodendron ekmanii), Bojuco Caro (Princess Vine), Marabeli (Securidaca virgata), or the Timacle (Chiococca alba). From what I have read, "mamajuana" is a little bit different everywhere you go, (and the fact that these folks did not want to disclose the ingredients points to the idea that they have something special in it) so it might be hard to replicate this guys results without going to the same source. BUT...all in all this stuff looks like it would do SOMETHING to you As far as the alcohol not being a trigger...Do you know for sure that this guy reacts to that much alcohol? I know I can take a little but not a lot. Otherwise it does seem kinda weird, and point to something working pretty damn good and pretty damn fast. Not impossible, but I'm skeptical. -Ricardo

Some of my experiences: For me the heavy indica's will sometimes make my cluster's worse and hardly ever make them better. The best I have found is a strain that is a good sativa/indica mix that is heavy on the sativa. The really high sativa's work for me but only for a day or so. It seems like I build up tolerance to it very quickly. If I smoke before bed, even with a strain that is usually very helpful, I'll end up with a cluster when I wake up. A number of drugs have this same effect on me (like Ketamine) I really have to watch what I have taken in the couple hours before bed. If I eat something made with the raw product (steeping buds or trim in something and extracting it, like cannabis butter) it is guaranteed to give me a cluster. Eating an extract like hash or hash oil does not. -Ricardo

Cluster Headaches--The breathing walls will keep you breathing.

For me, this does not prove to be true. If I have taken opiates daily for around a week they seem to sometimes prevent a bust, but I've had a number of times where I took opiates for a root canal or other tooth trouble and had completely successful busts. Exactly. It's proven that they CAN cause rebound headaches, not that they just in general cause headaches. Important distinction. There are many migrainers who only take opiates for their occasional migraines and do not end up with rebound headaches. I have definitely had rebound headaches from opiates, for me they always seemed to surface as heavy heavy tension headaches, not clusters (again, that's just me) For CH opiates suck. I'm not convinced that is the case for migraines though, unless you are having them pretty often. (3 times a week might be too often though.) The real question is how you feel after 3 days of opiates. On the 4th day do you always have a kicker of a headache? That would point to rebounds. If on the 4th day this is not regularly happening I would suspect that it's not rebounds. (rebounds also will always respond to more opiates, if your CH is not responding to opiates my guess is that it has nothing to do with rebound headaches) -Ricardo

BTW guys, what we are doing is working On CH.com I just read a post (titled LSD) where a person is saying "A friend told me he read about it in Wikipedia (!) as a way to stop attacks for 3 months, and thought I should look into it. " Just might have saved another one. Take that you censoring shmuck-thuck [smiley=thumbsup.gif] -Ricardo

I should give a little detail on my experiences with Melatonin...If I took melatonin in the middle of the day I do not think it would give me a cluster. I actually think it is something about taking melatonin right before trying to sleep that gives me the cluster. There are a number of drugs that do this to me. Cannabis, Melatonin, and Ketamine are just a couple examples. Ketamine is one of the best examples--It works to get rid of my cluster during the day, but if I take it too close to bed time it GIVES me a cluster? Cannabis I can smoke during the day but the same comes for night time--sure fire way of setting off a cluster. Not all meds are this way for me, their are a number of things I can take that do not set me off...Recently I read this article on sleep- http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/brains-flush-toxic-waste-in-sleep-including-alzheimers-linked-protein-study-of-mice-finds/2013/10/19/9af49e40-377a-11e3-8a0e-4e2cf80831fc_story.html And it gave further evidence to my ideas of what is going on. I think I am having trouble detoxifying my body and certain drugs make it even harder. My bet is that this would be one more trigger of my clusters, not an actual root cause. If I had to take a complete guess it would be that a body that is not detoxying to the right degree ends up with higher nitric oxide levels, and that will trigger a cluster. One idea that I have thought of recently is mapping out all the substances that it seems like I can not take before sleep and the ones that I can. Then go through and look for a common denominator, like "this is metabolized mostly by your liver" or "This is metabolized by your kidney's" More info all the time.... -Ricardo