Ricardo
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Posts posted by Ricardo
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Good God! I just reread that post--How Friggin Depressing! Back to Drugs! Ricardo's Psychedelic Head Pain obviously needs something more psychedelic.
And THIS is just messed up...
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/shulgin/blg/index.html
According to Sasha Shulgin, if we added something with an ample amount of 5-MEO-DMT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virola) to your substrate that you grow your mushy's in, you can have your mushrooms act like tiny laboratories that 4-hydroxylate your 5-MEO-DMT, making it so you can come up with crazy psychedelics that are ridiculously hard to make or come by. What does it all mean? I have no idea, but it's friggin awesome.
Enjoy!
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So.....Let's see if we can tease this apart.  Alcohol IS an NMDA receptor antagonist, but it has many other actions, most of them very bad for headache. These "bad" actions that have to do with headache greatly outnumber the "good" of NMDA antagonist. Alcohol is almost always bad for a headache, I'm guessing it COULD be helpful with tension headaches, but I wouldn't bet on it. Beer is a completely different thing, mostly from the Hops. If you really think the beer is helping, you could try hops on it's own. It does have some pain killing properties, sedative properties (is it helping you sleep better, which gives you less headaches?), and probably some anti-inflamatory action...But then again if beer works, beer works, right?Â
Unless you get to the "Delerium Tremens" thing. That's when you become delirious from your body going through withdrawal after becoming addicted to alcohol and you stop drinking. I'm guessing you don't have that, but hey, no judgement here
 And if you DID have delerium tremens, another beer might not be what you want 
Last note... As far as I know, Amitriptyline has been shown to be successful with migraines but I've never heard of it working for clusters.
-Ricardo
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That was the name of the blog I started years ago. Unfortunately I think the only person who read it was meÂ
. So many times I have something to say and no idea where to put it, I guess this might be the place. I started a whole junk load of stress and B.S. last week after I got upset at a joke that I thought was inappropriate. My goal was essentially trying to get people to realize that we have worldwide members and we might end up making people upset and offending them. In the end it seems like I made people upset and offended them. Not a very effective strategy huh? I'm throwing out apologies left and right--if I've left any out please PM me and we can work through it, the last thing I want is lingering anger and resentment with any of us.Â
I think we make a great family. We all support each other, but even the best families have their times when people do not agree, over react and get angry. I want to publicly apologize to Not4Hire for the way I handled his post, to our moderators for not dealing with this situation in a way that was actually productive, and even to Potter for freaking the F out on him. Although I may not agree with the way you go about things, Potter, You deserve respect just like everyone else on this board and I will try to remember that. Again, if I have left anyone out, I deeply apologize and encourage them to PM me, like I should have done in the first place
I've been in a rough place lately. Believe it or not, the headaches haven't been that bad. (Thank you Ketamine) What has been especially rough on me is that my amazing wonderful canine friend is dying and there is nothing I can do about it. My wife just told me that if she dies in the middle of winter we're going to have to put her in our chest freezer until spring. (seriously) Me and my wife are going through crazy issues with I.V.F. so that we can have kids. My Wife has to have surgery to remove a grapefruit sized endometrioma before we even think about the I.V.F.----and that is scaring the hell out of me. Business has been stressful to the extreme. My pop was been helping me get a woodshed built, until he got pneumonia in both lungs.  Now I'm worried about him, and I have 5 cords of wood and a half built shed under the 2 feet of Halloween snow I got. I could keep going, but why dwell on the negative, eh?
I'm sure all of this contributed to me reacting in a way that obviously did not help, but that doesn't really matter. What does is that I am sorry, and I hope that is enough.
-Ricardo
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I was on Gabapentin for more than 2 years when I was dealing with seizures. I'm one of the few that did not seem to get any negative effects from it (not many positive ones either
)As far as memory goes though, the seizures that I had really screwed my memory up--like BIG time. Could hardly remember anything. Then I gave up on Western Medicine (again) and went for the shrooms to treat my headaches. I can not stress enough how helpful they were for me and my memory. They helped my headache more than any other med, but more importantly it felt like they gave me my life back. The one I had forgotten about. The first few times I busted all I could do was lie in the dark, I was overwhelmed by memory--at times it was so vivid I felt like I was reliving experiences. It brought me to tears quite a few times, having the life I had lived that seemed just "gone" to be flooding back to me. Highly recommended.
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He said.the only thing that all the vitamins have done is turn his urine purple!he is hallucinating conversations that never happened
Not trying to scare you, but these seem like not typical reactions that could be serious. I would mention this to the Doc rather soon.....
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Didn't know about BOL but knew stuff to try that I hadn't heard of
Ron--Please share!
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To date, I have never heard of anyone busting with AMT. But I would be very surprised if it did not work. For the folks who haven't heard of it, AMT is alpha-Methyltryptamine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-Methyltryptamine
It's a tryptamine psychedelic with a lot of amphetamine qualities to it. I was very surprised to read that it is legal in the UK and is not mentioned in Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act...
Sasha Shulgin's write up of it makes it seem like it is somewhat unpredictable. Might make you trip hard, might not. Might make you puke like you've never puked before, might not. Seems pretty speedy and it seems like it can last a long time.
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/tihkal/tihkal48.shtml
Scariest part of it is that there have been 2 confirmed deaths from it.
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/amt/amt_death1.shtml
If I had the chance, I would probably try a small dose, but not with any other drugs. I have no idea how it would interact with methysergide, I would be more scared of the Amitriptalyine. Any time you are combining psychedelics with antidepressants you are putting yourself at a greater danger of serotonin syndrome.Â
My 2 cents is that it's an interesting drug that I would be very careful with, I would not feel comfortable at all combining it with the list of drugs that you're currently on.Â
As far as the Imitrex, many people feel like too much will give you rebounds. Far from being proven, but in my experience it seems that way. As far as being dangerous, I have no clue, but I would er on the side of caution and believe him unless you can get a second opinion stating otherwise.
If you went hog wild with the Oxygen do you think you could avoid the Imitrex for a week?
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Man, Do I wish I had some good advice to give...I'll give you what I got.
First off, when you're saying "All the meds are gone"--That seems like the first problem, and it's a problem that is coming from the doctors. I would get in contact with them, if they start some bullshit like saying he's gone through his drugs too fast, remind them that that means he was either not given enough drugs or not given the right drugs. It's fine to try out new drugs, but when you are dealing with THE MOST PAINFUL CONDITION KNOWN TO MAN, there is not time or room to dilly dally with waiting out days until you can get more meds. It is unacceptable for them to let him go through days of pain. It really sucks that he might have to go to the ER.Â
I would really push for the Ketamine--not even because I think it will work so well, but because it's so damn safe. One of the few sedatives that does not depress lung function. You can put yourself in a K hole, but you're not going to experience life threatening reactions. And you won't have to wait a week to see if it works. If you could convince a doctor to prescribe it you can pick it up, Michael puts it up his nose and you know within minutes if it's going to work. I would be very surprised if it did not at least take the edge off.
Another thought is the Nitrous. I would go grab 5 cans of whipped cream and have Michael suck them down.
Huge amounts of ginger--like 20-30 ginger pills. This was recommended by an accupuncturist and it has worked with limited success, but it has definitely seemed to help, especially if I take it with whatever abortive I'm attempting. Seems to help other drugs kick in pretty well, although I seem to get tolerance to it's effect pretty quickly.
As far as the weed, I'm betting he's not going to try it again. BUT if he does, I would stay away from the strains that "might help him sleep". Ganja does help me (especially when taking opiates--sometimes it seems like opiates hardly work for me UNLESS I toke some herb with it) but it's always the trippier sativa strains that help me. Sedating, Indica herb seems to many times make my head worse, there are a few strains that I won't go near. The really trippy paranoia inducing herbs are the ones that help me most. My friends all laugh how I get excited when someone tells me they found a strain they couldn't handle cause of the paranoia.
What about you Ron? How are you holding up? It's gotta be rough going through withdrawal, dealing with your pain AND going through all the stress with Michael.Â
We're all thinking of you two, keep us posted.
-Ricardo
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My caffeinated brain wants to share some thoughts....Such as-- we are awesome (In the true sense of the word), we are powerful and we have the capacity to create major change in the world. (yes I am a long haired hippy)Â This link here spurred these thoughts on...
http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/9/22/foldit-gamers-beat-boffins-aids-breakthrough/
Gamers figured out in 3 weeks what scientists had not been able to do in 10 years.Â
This is just a small tip that points to the real truth, That regular people like you and me can be geniuses, regular people can come up with amazing thoughts and ideas that other so-called specialists, scientists and professionals have missed. I remember when I first started posting to CH.com a guy posted to me...
"I applaud your quest for knowledge in the pathophysiology of the cluster headache and the oxygen therapy abort mechanism, but you're asking questions that the brightest minds in neurology who study the cluster headache syndrome on a near daily basis have been grappling with for years. If the answers to your questions were at hand, these experts would likely be a lot closer to understanding the real cause or our disorder."
AND I CALL BULLSHIT!
This whole site is here because of US! Not some scientist who thought shrooms would be cool to try for a headache, Not a researcher, a regular cluster sufferer who had no real options for help and listened to himself and the cosmos to realize the healing potential of the mushroom. To me, it would seem silly for it to end there, and I doubt it will. I wouldn't even be surprised to find out that Cluster Headache HAS been cured, we just need to find the wacked out studies that mainstream science isn't paying attention to. (Hell, if anybody ever feels like translating Italian, while I was shrooming I found an Italian website claiming they've "cured" cluster headache)
 My endpoint is---Never let the powers of our society convince you that you are as powerless as they want you to be. Never be convinced that we can not figure this out. Never give up fighting this beast...And most importantly....Listen to them shrooms! Offer them up to the cosmos and ask for help, love and information...Nothing in my life has helped more, as long as I remember "they may not give me what I want, but they sure as hell seem to give me what I need..."
Enjoy the Day!
-Ricardo
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I keep posting stuff that has nothing to do with the usual cluster busting drugs, just drugs that no one else seems to talk about...And lately I keep wondering---Is this the place for this? And I keep coming back with a resounding yes. My take on this site has been that it's the place to talk about all the stuff nobody on our sister site wants to. I am NOT trying to make out an US and THEM kinda thing, both sites really seem to have their place. But when I post about crazy ideas that nobody (or almost nobody) is considering on CH.com, I'm usually met with silence (seems to me to be the equivalent of "What the hell is that dude smoking?" kinda thing.) Here, I feel like we've all accepted the truth of our situation--which is that, sometimes, Really crazy ideas actually work.-- especially when battling the beast. I get feedback on my crazy ideas without much Nancy Regan drug war style hysteria and I want to thank you all for it and for letting me be part of the community. It's a hell of a support system we've got here
-Ricardo
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Here's a wikipedia article on NMDA receptor antagonist with a list of some of the known drugs in the class.Â
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMDA_receptor_antagonist
Obviously, not all of them are going to help, One of the drugs listed is alcohol! Some of them are already used for clusters like Tramadol and Mementine, but I haven't heard really great results from people that have tried them...maybe I just haven't talked to the right people. The ones that seem to me like they might have promise are Orphenadrine, Ketamine, Nitrous Oxide, Dextromethorphan (actually found a doc on line recommending mixing up the trex with some Dextromethorphan) and I.V. magnesium.
According to the article I posted by the Dana institute, your brain's ability to remove excess glutamate is largely dependant on the amount of glutamate in your blood. If the levels are too high in your blood your brain is not able to rid itself of excess glutamate. With this in mind, I think a couple things to get your blood glutamate levels lower could include lots and lots and lots of water (Many people including myself find this to be helpful with some clusters) and eating less high glutamate foods. A while back I had a list of high and low glutamate foods, I'll try and find it.
In that same Dana Institute link they talk of a novel way of reducing the glutamate in both the brain and the blood by an I.V. solution of a natural compound called oxaloacetate. Supposedly it transforms the glutamate into another substance, lowering the blood glutamate levels first, then the brain. Right now I'm looking into Pyruvate supplements...Pyruvate carboxylase catalyzes to form oxaloacetate and although I have not been able to find Pyruvate carboxylase supplements, I have seen calcium pyruvate. The little research I've done leads me to think it will do the same thing, but as of right now I'm not sure. I'll keep looking and keep ya'll posted.
-Ricardo
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And octreotide, which mimicks somatostatin pharmacologically...This actually seems like something I might try and push for....
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Pain relief by somatostatin in attacks of cluster headache.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6145138
Interestingly enough, Somatostatin is also known as growth hormone-inhibiting hormone....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatostatin
And triptans has been shown to INCREASE growth hormone....Is this why they suck so much?
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A couple of online books that I thought might belong here...
Ayahuasca Analogues and Plant-based Tryptamines--
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/ayahuasca_analogues_dekorne_complete.pdf
And
Ayahuasca: alkaloids, plants & analogs
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/ayahuasca_apa/aya1.shtml
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sometimes a little laughter is all we need to brighten our day
Completely agree. My whacked out sense of humor has probably been the most effective strategy I've found for coping with the beast. Although the time I took heavy doses of mushrooms and morphine together comes in a close second.....
This clip makes me laugh pretty hard every time I see it...
www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D_vUhSYLRw14
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One of my favorites...Hendrix in Monterey
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Ron recently noticed something really cool in our conversation with Dr. Sewell regarding Ketamine and cluster headaches. He cites a study that claimed they could not use Ritalin as a control because it has been known to abort cluster headaches. After I started looking I found this--
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15613186
It's an extremely small study, just one 43 year old sufferer, but supposedly 10 milligrams of ritalin aborted his cluster within 10 minutes. Here's the same study with a little more detail.
http://www.clusterheadaches.com/wwwboard/messages/1771.html
And here's an account written by a doctor who treated a 37 year old patient with Ritalin and had very good success...
http://www.understandingpain.com/46.html
I'm game. One more thing I'm going to ask my Neuro for at my next appointment.  Maybe I won't ask him for Ketamine, narcotics and ritalin all in the same visit though... [smiley=happy.gif]
Thanks again Ron for paying attention to the details! Seems like a lot of times that's where the good stuff ends up hiding out...
-Ricardo
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Yeah, out of the two references they site, one doesn't work, the other is just about "avoiding headaches", they mention migraine a couple times but not clusters. Still it's an interesting topic to explore, I know there are people on the board who have migraines too (I may be one of them) The whole "you should avoid tyramine containing foods " deal has always made me cringe. I have never once heard anyone asking, "WHY is tyramine affecting you this way" tyramine gets broken down by the MAO enzymes A & B. The way I see it, if you are reacting to tyramine your MAO enzymes are not working correctly, and it sounds like a DIGESTIVE disorder to me. Just my 2 cents...
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This might help...
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I feel like I'm in the land of OZ. (Might have something to do with the tea....) Did our moderator just come on here and tell us that we're not talking about psychedelic drugs enough? That's friggin cool... ;D
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I used to...eventually I figured out I was allergic to gluten and my seizures stopped....I would make a neurologist appointment as soon as you can. It sounds like you probably had a seizure, and I wouldn't discount it being from the meds switch. Remember every drug is different, even when you're talking about generic vs brand name---they used to tell me when I was on Dilantin that if I switched to a generic version of the drug I had to do it very slowly or I could have a seizure, because they are not really identical drugs.
I really feel for you and understand you freaking out...It's a scary thing, but I doubt it's something that's going to last. Feel free to ask any questions, and I'll try and think of anything else that could help.
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Anybody up for translating some Italian? I was looking through my bookmarks and came across this...
http://www.fondazionesicuterinicolodi.it/index.html
From the bit that I translated with Google Translator I got that they claim they have figured out how to cure cluster headaches. At one point they were talking about excititory amino acids, then to GnRH (Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone), and then to cholinergic drugs----interesting to say the least, I've never heard of any of these things talked about with cluster headache.....
Ricardo's Psychedelic Head Pain
in General Board
Posted
Damn it Ting! I am now amassing an army of angry Norwegians that find no humor in your assertion that Norwegians are funny or yellow. We will find you! It's gonna be me, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton....Just wait.
Disclaimer---I AM A SARCASTIC SON OF A BITCH AND HAVE TAKEN TOO MANY DRUGS TO BE CONSIDERED SANE IN A COURT OF LAW. PLEASE DO NOT HURT ME.
-Ricardo