Ricardo

There's good evidence to show that it can be helpful for all sorts of headaches... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22560101 -Ricardo

Hmmm.... Truthfully all the busting agents that I have used have also at times been helpful for aborting a headache so I'll list them. I put stars next to anything that seemed completely useless. LSD Psilocybin DMT Virola theiodora resin Tetrahydroharmine Harmine Harmaline Diplopterys cabrerana Salvia Divinorum* Mimosa Hostilis root bark* N-Acetyl Cysteine Ketamine Adderall* Testosterone* MDMA Nitrous Oxide Oxygen* Rivea Corymbosa seeds Morning Glory seeds Opium Datura Hash oil hashish Cannabis Wild Dagga* Carisoprodal Tramadol Indomethacin* Vicodin Vicoprofen Morphine I.V. Diphenhydramine Dilaudid Toradol* I.V. Magnesium Guarana Coffee Barbituates* High dose ginger I'm sure there is more that I am not remembering... -Ricardo

Seriously. What is up with these freaks that want to control and restrict information for people? The only thing that restricting information does is make people less informed. If you are so scared that if people know all of the truth of a situation that they might not do what you think is best, maybe your idea sucks. -Ricardo

I would be tempted to ignore this warning. Rizatriptan has been used off label for clusters for a whole lot of people for years. I'm pretty sure the only reason they do not say the same warning for Imitrex is that there have been studies on Imitrex and clusters, but not with Rizatriptan. The other warnings (hemiplegic migraine, etc...)are the same with sumatriptan and are because of an increased risk of stroke. This to me is kinda weird, because it is pretty rare for a drug to work that quickly. Might be worth looking into how quickly each of these drugs is getting into your system, melatonin in particular gets working very quickly. My point being, you may not need all the drugs in that combo. In particular, I have trouble believing that the ibuprofen is working that quick and can be harsh on your guts, you may not need it. Who knows though, maybe all together they are having a synergistic effect and kicking in super quick.... -Ricardo

Seeing as how it has not been mentioned yet I'll throw it out there. I would be very surprised if Ralph did not know of the stories that have come out about treating cancer with extremely high potency cannabis extract, but just in case...All sorts of studies back up the claims that he makes. -Ricardo

Bob, I think that would have gotten a standing ovation if it had been a talk. I couldn't agree more. Humbleness and humility is the only thing that allows us to uncover the truth of the situation. We all uncover "truths" in our clusterbuster exploration but to me the most important part is to remember that these truths are specific to our situation. I have a couple random drugs that if taken occasionally can abort a cluster, but they have never worked for anyone else. Melatonin helps a number of people but gives me a big friggin cluster. Moxie can get rid of some headaches with HARD ALCOHOL! On and on I could go with weird things that throw a monkey wrench into the "all clusters behave like this" kinda thing that we all want to go into once we uncover information that is specific to some people or just ourselves. To me the important thing to remember is that NO ONE anywhere knows what is going on with cluster headache. No one can say any one thing for sure about cluster headache besides the fact that it is a debilitating condition and most of western medicine is determined to let us figure it out on our own. We all have our own situations, we all have our own experiences. By listening and sharing our stories we can compile our experiences into something that has the potential to help untold amounts of people, but not if we lose sight of the individualness of the situation. The brain is too complicated (and most likely CH as well) to have a one drug, one thing, one protocol approach, at least at this point. Hopefully someday it will be simple and we will have the "everyone do this and you are fine" scenario. Until then, remember that the most helpful thing to achieve the goal of truth is to remember and realize the difference between the things we think, the things we experience and the things we know. pain free days to all (not likely for me but the headfull of ketamine is getting me by) -Ricardo

Be aware that Amitriptyline has been shown to greatly intensify psychedelic drugs in a not good way. For some reason it seems to make many peoples trips not just more intense but especially terrifying, adding a somewhat sinister flavor to the experience. In my opinion, if she is going to bust I would make sure she has been off the Amitriptyline for at least 2 weeks. (unless she decides sometime in the next week that she's going to scrap the whole idea and throw the script in the trash. I would think 1 week would be sufficient in this case BUT I can't guarantee anything.) -Ricardo

There are no stupid questions, just stupid answers. Feel free to ask anything, no matter how basic it seems to you. When people talk about "aborting" they are talking about getting rid of an individual headache. When people talk about "busting" they are talking about the attempt to stop or at least lessen the severity of a cycle. -Ricardo

Sumatriptan is essentially DMT with a sulfur molecule added on, which makes it very different from DMT. Psilocybin is essentially DMT that has a phosphorus molecule added on. -Ricardo

Here's some info on it...Definitely interesting stuff but not much info on it and it has been on the market for a ridiculously short amount of time. http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/745848-The-Big-amp-Dandy-1P-LSD-%281-propionyl-lysergic-acid-diethylamide%29-Thread -Ricardo

If you are going to be on Indomethacin I would take some Guarana as well. It might just protect your guts from the irritation that it can cause in a lot of people. (There's a good chance it will make the Indo work better for headaches as well, seeing as how it has a pretty decent amount of caffeine in it) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14669256 -Ricardo

I would. Maybe up the dose a little if you are comfortable with it. If the first round didn't do much for you I would guess that it wouldn't interfere with a successful bust though... -Ricardo

Amyl Nitrate will increase the nitric oxide levels in your blood, which if you are a cluster headache or migraine sufferer will almost definitely trigger an attack or make your existing attack worse. In clinical trials they give nitric oxide to people to trigger their headaches so that they can then test different abortives on people. Not recommended. -Ricardo

Smoking DMT was amazingly helpful for me but is a hard choice for me to recommend to people. Ayahuasca, while being a great experience for me, did not seem super helpful. What is always good to remember though, that "Ayahuasca" is a blanket term for a brew that contains both DMT and a MAO inhibitor to make the the DMT not get destroyed in our gut by the MAO enzyme. In other words, there are a lot of plants that you can use and I would imagine that each would be different. The one major thing that I wonder about with DMT is the fact that it is an endogenous brain chemical, we make it ourselves. This has led researchers to believe that it does not create "tolerance" because it needs to work all the time in your brain. If your brain did create a tolerance to it you would no longer be able to use the DMT in your brain that you need to and you would most likely not be functioning at all anymore. To me, this may be the crucial thing that separates the long lasting relief drugs (LSD, Psilocybin, etc..) from the short acting not long lasting relief drugs (like DMT) When you take mushrooms over and over again you KNOW that it is affecting your brain for months at a time because you take them again and don't have as pronounced of an effect. This may not be what is giving us relief, but I wonder if it is. -Ricardo

I have no direct experience with either of these drugs, but here is some info on 4-AcO-DMT. http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/649530-The-Big-amp-Dandy-4-AcO-DMT-Thread-Act-Four?s=34cc5bb00fba01a5de2b3448906760b0

Me too...lots of ear and sinus infections. And a shitload of antibiotics to treat them. I would not be surprised if killing off all the good bacteria in my gut had something to do with my chronic daily clusters. -Ricardo

I was researching the whole LSA to LSH thing a while back and never really found any definitive answers. There are intelligent people that swear this conversion should not happen, there are intelligent people saying that it should. (One thing I have never heard people claim is that Psilocybin is getting changed into LSH, pretty sure that is impossible) One thing that I found quoted a number of times is that Owsley claimed that LSH is indistinguishable from LSD but after researching a bit I found that the LSH that Oswley was talking about was a different LSH than we are talking about here. Also, I have never heard (and am really skeptical) that the LSA is binding to acetaldehyde and changing to LSH in your body. If it did, there would be no qualitative difference in any sort of peppermint conversion (assuming that actually works)---instead you would always just be getting an LSH trip. In the mycoptopia link that was posted one guy writes what I think is happening. "When the seed is picked, it starts to decompose to yield the sedating LSA, which further decomposes to yield BUNK. However once the seeds are decomposed enough, but prior to becoming bunk, their magic can be "revived" by the combination of an aldehyde (acetaldehyde, commonly; found in rum, sherry or fresh peppermint leaf) forming an adduct with the decomposed chemicals, thus re-forming the potent, stimulating LSH... or (whispers in the wind tell of a stable aldehyde in cinnamon essential oil) an even more potent adduct when mixed into the good, old, sacred-seed CWE." The Cinnamon thing that people are talking about goes like this-instead of using acetaldehyde you use a type of aldehyde (there are a number of them) that is in cinnamon (cinnamaldehyde) that makes a somewhat different conversion with somewhat different results. (all theory) Here's some more info on that: https://mycotopia.net/topic/70425-lsa-cinnamaldehyde-cinnamon-essential-oil/ The thing I would stress is that no one really knows what is being changed into what (if anything is being changed) and we won't know until we get good lab tests done on seeds before and after attempting this conversion. What I can say for sure is that my experiences seem to indicate that SOMETHING is happening. I have had seeds that knocked me down and sedated me more than almost anything else I have taken in my life and I have had seeds that reminded me of a light dose of LSD. These experiences are so different that I know something is going on. Only once have I had seeds that acted like LSD where I attempted no conversion but I washed it down with an alcoholic beverage which I later found out is high in acetdelhyde. Native peoples have always claimed these seeds are visionary substances and to me LSA's sedating stupor does not fit that idea very well. I suspect what that earlier quote claimed is true--that fresh seeds have a visionary, hallucinatory substance in them, that this substance degrades with time and that it can be brought back by combining it with certain substances. -Ricardo

Seeing as how this thread has been silent since April I'm guessing (correct me if I'm wrong) that the Mama Juana isn't working as well as folks hoped. I had been waiting on getting good alcohol for extractions and ended up kind of forgetting about the whole thing, I never ended up making mine. Now I'm figuring I should do something with this, might as well try it. The question I'm having is that it seems like the instructions are telling me to soak the herbs in wine for 7 days, then dump the wine out. Am I understanding that right? If I'm getting this right I think it is saying to dump the first batch, but not the ones after that. Any info on peoples method for preparing this would be appreciated. -Ricardo

No one knows what causes cluster headaches, that is why it is a ridiculous idea to start the guessing game of "I think I'll interrupt blood flow to cluster headache sufferers brains and see if we can have half of them report back some success (while many others report back HORRIBLE side effects and no help) The fact that this is Elliott Shevell's son should be repeated again and again. THERE IS NO WAY HE CAN BE UNBIASED. This is his son. Besides the fact that he would naturally want to stand up for his father, he also stands to inherit all the money that you give this mad scientist who calls himself a doctor. If this was someone who did not have this kind of connection to Scientist Shevell the arguments he makes might hold some water but that is not the case. In my opinion this thread would be a lot more helpful if Danny would go away, as he has no way of having an unbiased opinion. -Ricardo

On this site http://www.internationalpharmacy.com/en/restrictions I found this about prescriptions in Italy: "Prescription from Italian physician must accompany all shipments for personal use. Prescription from physicians outside of Italy is not accepted. " Looks like it is not going to happen. (for me) -Ricardo

This, I did not know. I was trying to find a source for Lisuride a while back. Boston Headache Doc said he would prescribe it for me but I could find no way of getting it. At one point it was sold in all sorts of countries (as Dopergin) but now the only place I could find it was New Zealand and they have a law saying they will not export prescription meds. Any idea if Italy has any sort of law like that? Thanks for this info! -Ricardo

That scares the hell out of me. Until you give PCguy his $20,000 back you are most definitely making money from people's suffering. Your cavalier attitude towards brain surgery failures may be the biggest problem of all. A failure for us means unbelievable pain, $20,000 less in your pocket, untold amounts of missed work and a shattered illusion that we are getting help. (unless of course we just die on the operating table) A failure for you guys means "oh, we've had some failures...but look here's TWO people that we didn't fail with!" Seems like we are just another number, a statistic. Lives are ruined. We are not just statistics. -Ricardo

And that's the problem with this type of therapy. When a brain surgery "fails" the implications can be devastating. When the hallucinogens don't work we shrug our shoulders and try something else. If you want Clusterbusters to get on the side of your father I think he would have to start researching options that do not have the unfortunate side effects that brain surgery has. We've found non-hallucinogenic drugs that can stop clusters for months at a time--this is no small thing. Anyone that is still looking to slice a brain open to solve clusters is operating in yesterday and ignoring one of the most important discoveries in headache medicine. Sorry if that seems harsh, but peoples lives are at stake here. We can go into the myriad of reasons as to why brain surgery is an archaic, barbaric travesty of an option but I'm betting you just want to drop this. I do not understand how anyone could ever think it is a good idea to do this when the possible outcomes range from possible cluster relief to "It was a complete failure and left me with damaged nerves on the left side of my head, more pain than before the surgery and absolutely no improvement." or even death. For a start you could try and get your dad to pay back the $20,000 he got from PCguy's botched brain surgery. That's about as insulting as it gets. -Ricardo

Biggest problem with Lisuride seems to be that you can only get it in New Zealand... -Ricardo

I did. We did not get long to talk but I gave him some basic info. It surprised me that he (and everybody else) was aware of the cluster/hallucinogen connection but knew very little of the basic info. Convinced me even more that we need to up our advocacy and get people talking about this. One thing that I did have time to talk about was how and why the psychedelic community should be shouting our story from the rooftops. There is the obvious reason--we need help, but there is also an amazing point to be made on clusters and psychedelic research. Because of peoples reports on the usefulness of psychedelics for clusters we ended up getting researchers to explore this idea and it brought us to Bol-148. We listened to hallucinogenic explorers, went forward with research and it ended up with a NON-HALLUCINOGENIC option for our clusters. Even if we can't get it, it works. Even people that are completely against the use of hallucinogens can't say anything against it. If the people in charge would let us explore these things more we would most likely have more stories like this. That is the right link, it's just not to the spot where you can download or see the conference because it is not yet available, but supposedly it will be soon. I mostly put that link up just to give the run down of who was there. If you Google these people individually you can find good interesting info on each. -Ricardo