Ricardo

I have the best results from busting. If I do not bust I am completely useless and would probably be on disability. If I take 9.5 grams of mushy's 3 weekends in a row then 1 week off (and then repeat it all over again and again and again) it keeps them to a low roar, enough that I can treat it with Ketamine. It ends up being daily ketamine with small breaks. I take Ketamine most of the day for 9-13 days, then take 5 days off. Sometimes even all this does not work and I end up needing DMT or Imitrex. The absolute worst seems to be when I am on vacation. I end up going through 2 weeks worth of Ketamine, a whole lot of Imitrex, and a whole lot of reefer. Thinking that there was actually a drug I could take that would make it so I did not experience headaches for a week AND actually enjoy my vacation without being a ketamine freak was what pulled me to the Prednisone. As it turns out, the Prednisone made the Ketamine work a lot less effectively. I do not usually actually take enough that the pain is gone, it just lessens it, relaxes me and makes me not care so much. Now with the Crystal Meth prescription (prednisone) the relaxing, dreamy part is gone. It lowers the pain but it does not quite do what I need unless I take a whopper of a dose. Luckily the speed effect almost completely nullify's the intoxicating part of it. Unluckily this is going to make one big part of what I wanted to do (save my Ketamine) useless. Less effective and going through it twice as fast. -Ricardo

No apologies needed. I always want to know the worst case scenario, it's the only way to be prepared. The Prednisone gave me 2-3 days of only medium strength shadows, then yesterday gave way to a mild but definitely not a shadow CH. (even though I was still on the full dose) The past week has reminded me of a Hunter Thompson speed binge scene. I think the only reason I have slept is because of the benzo's I'm popping, even then it feels more like "on and off" then actual sleep. The bags under my eyes tell me the same story. I'm like, "WOW! I feel like I can do anything!" and my wife is like, "really? Cause you look like death warmed over" Then I'm like "YOU CAN ALL BURN IN HELL YOU SNIVELING TWITS!!!!  PRENDISONE IS MY FRIEND!!!! IT MAKES ME....IT makes me....Wait, what the hell was I talking about?  Oooh that flower is pretty....Is there something heavy I can lift?" Throw in the usual abortives (caffeine, reefer, and ketamine) and I am the most screwed sideways speed freak you have ever met. I swear if I had just a little less impulse control I would be in a bathtub of ice cubes wearing a shark fin on my head and muttering about pinkos and communists taking over.  Bad drugs. So.....I bet this drug has it's place. Hell if I know what it is. At least I know now what this junk does to me....and soon I will find out what happens when I stop it. Can't blame my Doc, I went to him asking for it -Ricardo

Tell me about it...Reefer is my friend Thanks for the info Jeeb's! Here's another question for folks...For the people that get hit hard when they stop the roids, is this a gradual thing that hits as you do the taper? Or does it hit you like a sledgehammer after you stop taking it all together? Another question--do other folks still get shadows? (I am) Definitely using a hell of a lot less ketamine, but still needing it a little, especially in the morning. Altogether, I think the roids have kept me out of the ER at least. Definitely apprehensive about the coming week though...Guessing it's gonna be a psychedelic one...I am right on thinking that the roids do not interfere with most peoples busting, right? Thanks again guys! -Ricardo

This has got me thinking about arc welders, sheet metal, air compressors and making a pressure chamber....I've always wanted to make a sensory deprivation tank (watch Altered States ) and I bet you could make one tank that could do both.... Hmmmm....I have an arc welder And I know a dude that used to do professional welding for George Lucas... Hmmm.... indeed. I know my neuro is reading this with very wide eyes right now and saying, "What the fug are you thinking about doing?!?" I'll be careful, I promise -Ricardo

I am on a trip out to Ohio and I'm getting hit constantly...Too much driving, not enough food and a serious caffeine overdose (Note to self--when your wife is not at the top of her game, do not have her in charge of how long you let the french press steep ) Ketamine is getting me by but it's only going to last so long. Trex is barely working and I'm getting to that spot where I know I will have Trex rebounds soon. I have a script for prednisone that I think I may have to take. I have never taken it, and what I am really wondering is this--if I take it as prescribed (a total of 12 days) can I do it all again in 2 months? I have been looking forward to a real vacation this year and I was hoping to take my script then but it looks like my options are turning into an Ohio hospital ER or Prendisone.  BAMF Luckily, I really am not doing that bad right now...but I can feel it building in that all too familiar way that says pretty soon I am going down hard. As I side note, my brain has been spinning with cluster thoughts lately, good ones...As in, I feel like everyday I am figuring more and more out about our Fugged up disease. Every day I feel like we are moving towards real information that will help us all, I can feel it coming like a freight train. Gonna go pop 4 prednisone and hope that in a day and a half this cluster will really subside. Until then, I'm a ketamine freak. As another side note, caffeine overdose combined with lots of ketamine is strikingly similar to pretty clean LSD. All I kept saying is "Why is everything so BEAUTIFUL?!? The tree's are FIZZING? Why are my palms pouring sweat like I'm a speed freak?!? Why can't I stop talking?!?"  Eventually my wife let me in on the fact that she let my extra strong coffee steep for somewhere around 30 minutes instead of 10.... Onward! -Ricardo

A contribution to our knowledge of Rivea Corymbosa The Narcotic Ololiuqui of the Aztecs By Richard Evan Shultes, 1941 http://wlbcenter.org/Schultes%20Publications/1941%20A%20contribution%20to%20our%20knowledge%20of%20Rivea%20corymbosa.pdf

I have had the pleasure of having him for a neuro for the past year and I only have good things to say. For the first time I have felt like I have a neuro who understands my headaches and has real solutions to treat them. For the first time in my life I am working a full time job and actually functioning, and I think I owe a lot of that to him and his open minded approach to medicine. Highly, Highly encourage anyone that can to go see him.

From everything I have read, nobody knows...Truthfully, I don't think I've really even heard any good theories. Most people think that the 5-HT receptors are involved, but it has been far from proven. We know that all the substances that seem to work for long term busting hit these receptors, but DMT is one that doesn't fit the bill...As in, it hits all sorts of 5ht receptors, but I have yet to find one person that says they have gotten a long term bust from it. (over and over again it is noted that it is however, a really great abortive) I think this could be a starting point for your research--asking what does Psilocybin, LSD, and LSA containing seeds do that DMT does not? Admittedly, it may not be that easy. There is always the possibility that DMT IS working, but that something else cancels this benefit out. I have always viewed with suspicion the fact that both Imitrex and DMT increase Human Growth Hormone because we have one cluster med (Somatostatin) that works by LOWERING human growth hormone...complicated indeed. A couple links you might be able to get something out of-- Psychedelics and the Human Receptorome- http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0009019 And here's a video with David Nichol's that one of our members (OneEyeCries) posted while back on how LSD works in the brain. The biggest thing I got out of it was how much more there is to the LSD experience than just serotonin receptors http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZJtdZUy1LYE This link may help as well. You will probably know most of the info, but the references at the end make note of a few of the older Bol-148 studies. http://researchlsd.blogspot.com/2009/12/bol-148.html I'll keep looking for more info that might lead you in the right direction. and keep the questions coming! The more specific they are the more likely it is that I might be able to help! -Ricardo

Dr. Brian McGeeney has written an amazing piece on the help that cannabinoids and hallucinogens offer the migraine and cluster headache sufferer. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/781651

I wouldn't give up on him just yet...Remember, from everything Western Medicine doctors have been taught you telling him that hallucinogenic mushrooms have worked for your clusters sounds bat shit crazy. Another thing to remember--doctors get a lot of people coming in with legitimately bat shit crazy ideas. I would do exactly what he told you to do. Print out info and send it to him. That's the only way to know if he is open minded enough to help you. Another thing to remember--Although it is important that your Doc not have a serious problem with what you are doing, there's nothing that says he has to give you the OK either...I've had docs all my life tell me I shouldn't do a whole bunch of stuff, I thank them for their opinion and tell them I am going to do it anyway Send him these-- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16801660 http://www.maps.org/research/sewell_2008_aha_lsa_poster.pdf http://www.entheogencorp.com/chemistry/ Then if he's still being a douchebag, fire his ass. -Ricardo

Great questions Udin! I would be glad to share any info I have on all this...No time right now, but I'll look around through my links and see what questions I can answer. Thanks for the interest, we really need more smart people willing to get involved in this research! -Ricardo

I could see this working for some folks...I have to admit though, for me I think the single most helpful thing has just been trying to give up the anger and frustration. Stop calling myself a "clusterhead" and letting the disease define myself. I just got so sick of being angry. It has never helped me with my clusters, not one bit. I think it was a wake up call when I got so pissed at my clusters that I took a baseball bat to an empty plastic bucket and had the metal part of the handle fly off and almost blind me in my left eye. I am not saying it's easy, and I am in no way saying I don't get angry with my situation. Eventually it might have been the anger itself that moved me to attempt to change. I wanted to be happy, not angry, and it has become obvious that my clusters are not going to go away any time soon.  At first it was very hard, pushing away anger and allowing acceptance of my situation...but the mushrooms helped me realize that I have a choice--I can go through life with daily clusters and be angry, seeing life through that jaded mask of anger, or I can go through life with daily clusters attempting to push away the pain and concentrate on the love, the light and the wonder of the universe. Easier said than done, but I will say this...Everyday that I try to pull in more positivity and push away pain, fear and negativity, it gets easier. A little easier every day. Final thought--When you do get to that point where you are going to beat the living snot out of an inanimate object, wear safety goggles... -Ricardo

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/31-kids-who-just-had-their-lives-ruined-by-the-easter-bunny

The idea was that blood vessel constrictors were good, dilators bad...This was said for both migraines and cluster headaches, but this has proven to not be so true with marijuana. Migraines respond very favorably to marijuana in many many cases. This would be a case of a supposed "vascular headache" (something clusters and migraines have been lumped into by doctors with an antiquated notion of how these headaches work) responding to a heavy duty blood vessel dilator. Another example showing the inaccurices in the idea of blood vessel dilators=bad is here, 2 blood vessel dilators that have shown to be a good help for migraine http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1526-4610.2011.01910.x/abstract I could write for hours on this, but most of what I would say I've already said in this thread-  http://www.clusterheadaches.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1242417046/0 (I would start on the first page, but make sure to read all 3.) That sucks. Remember though that it is always good to relate these experiences as personal experiences, not as general rules. I do not have this reaction at all, and I know other Clusterheads that would say the same. Like this guy- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19220500 Marijuana can effect the memory, but it's good to remember that chronic pain can do about the same (or worse). I toke everyday (many days quite heavily) and the folks that know me are somewhat amazed by my memory. I don't think I know anyone that can remember things as clearly and vividly as I usually do. My experience has been this--Cannabis has been one of the most helpful drugs that I have ever found for my clusters. This week alone I have toked every day pretty heavy because I wanted to stop my ketamine for a while and it completely got me through it. It did not erase my pain, but it brought it down quite a few notches. A couple times it did completely erase my pain, but only when I combined it with a heavy dose of coffee. It makes my ketamine work a thousand percent better, making it so I can take less. Although I hardly ever take opiates anymore, when I was I had the same experience--I was able to take much less of an extremely addictive drug. Two last thoughts that I will copy from my ch.com post "to me, it really is no surprise that we have such varied reactions to Cannabis. I know many people that have tried recreational marijuana, and you will hear some people say it makes them anxious, some it calms them down.  For some it wakes them up, for some it makes them sleepy. Some it inspires creativity, some it makes them stupid and stoned. My guess is that individual brain chemistry and cannabanoid receptor differences makes it so that all sorts of people get different reactions." and "After the the number of people that I have talked to claiming that cannabis HAS worked for them, I actually recommend it now--mostly because if you are one of the lucky ones that it actually works for, you have a non-toxic remedy available for you. (no small feat in the world of cluster headache drugs) The stipulation with my recommending this, is that you should make sure that you have an imitrex shot, some O2, or some other quick acting abortive ready in case you are one of the ones that it doesn't work for." -Ricardo

This is all really interesting...I have not gotten a chance to read the links in depth, but I will when I'm done with work. A couple things I can comment on now though... Something to remember is that this is a completely different strain of tobacco than what we get in stores today. The best way I had it explained was that old school tobacco was a serious intoxicating drug, and most of our pirates like Colombus could not handle the effects. In an effort to not seem like such wussy's in front of the natives they went for lighter and lighter (less intoxicating) strains until they got something they could handle. It is, and this is one of the more important things that cigarette smokers should know. Our own surgeon general C. Everett Koop came out in the 80's telling us that the reason tobacco gives us cancer is mainly because we fertilize it with radioactive fertilizer (radioactive phosphate fetilizer) (no one listened).  There is a way to avoid this--by growing your own or buying the super expensive organic American Spirits...Sounds worth it to me. A good read that explains this all a bit better- http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/radioactive-tobacco.2012-07-15 Researchers have induced cancer in animal test subjects that inhaled polonium 210, but were unable to cause cancer through the inhalation of any of the non-radioactive chemical carcinogens found in tobacco.10 The most potent non-radioactive chemical, benzopyrene, exists in cigarettes in amounts sufficient to account for only 1% of the cancer found in smokers. -Ricardo

Completely agree. Occasional use (like for a root canal) does not seem to interfere with busting for me. This makes sense, as the major receptors that seem to be involved in busting do not seem to be stimulated by opiates. I think there may be a big difference between "blocking a busting attempt" and plain old rebound headaches from opiates. One of the more interesting things I have found about long term opiate use is that it screws with your MAO system. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8475471   These "beta-carbolines" are natural chemicals that are MAO inhibitors. Essentially, if you take enough opiates, you will be walking around like you are on MAO inhibitors, all the time. You do not have to be a heroin addict to have this happen. I have found this effect to start happening after a good 5 -6 days of daily opiate use, and only discovered this back in the day when I was using DMT to bust. I would smoke DMT and it would act like I had taken an MAO inhibitor although I had not. This effect lasted for about a week after stopping all opiates, and I experienced this effect numerous times. I mention this because this, for me, was a barrier to successfully busting. Taking mushrooms or other hallucinogens after taking a MAO inhibitor has always seemed to interfere with busting for me. Taking opiates for short periods of time have never interfered with my busting, I have had quite a few successful busts while I was prescribed them. -Ricardo

I could see calendars doing really well. You could end up with some really nice pics of Morning Glories, Rivea Corymbosa, Hawaiin Woodrose, and a whole bunch of mushroom strains. I bet it would end up looking awesome and we'd have something everybody could buy once a year....

I bet a higher dose would be helpful, but I bet a week (or 2) off would be even better. For me the most beneficial seems to be busting once a week for 3 weeks, then take a week off. Tolerance to the shrooms build up pretty quick. When I was busting once a week continuously they stopped being very effective, even when I was taking sky high doses. I would get relief while on the shrooms, but that was about it. -Ricardo

Many of the flashback stories seem to be in essence PTSD. One of the most common things you will hear is about flashbacks coming on after a really bad trip. That being said, even without a bad trip it is possible to have lingering effects from psychedelics.  It's not that strange to me really, I mean hell, we know that these drugs make a change in our brains for months at a time...That's why we take them. I have never heard of anyone having flashbacks from light trips even when repeated, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. I definitely know one guy who had pretty bad flashbacks after a huge dose of DMT, but he stopped partaking in DMT and eventually it went away. At one point I had what I guess some people would call flashbacks...Me and my wife called it "me getting really fricking weird" I just started getting tripped out in my normal every day conversations, and the trips I took were getting extra extra weird. The thing is though. it only happened when I first decided to start busting again after years of stopping for health reasons. Anyone that knows me knows that I tend to overdue things. I got so sick of triptans I swore them off for quite a while. Instead I smoked DMT every day and every weekend I would take numerous LSD doses along with 8 or 9 grams of mushy's. After a couple months of this (seriously) I just started getting weird. I think I was having slight visual disturbances, but I think I was just getting too weird to notice or care. After taking a break, I pretty readily came back to reality. In truth most of these situations would not be classified as "flashbacks" but Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD) More on that here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder My 2 cents--I think it's possible to be getting flashbacks (or more likely HPPD) from non-heroic doses if taken repeatedly or if you were to have a really traumatic time when on them, but I would bet that almost all the cases would go away with not too long of a break. -Ricardo

Wow, this seems really cool. How does it work? Do they just put a light directly to you ear or do they have to insert a light into the actual ear canal? Any idea if it is a certain spectrum of light? This is really awesome that this is helping you...how often do you have it done?

I have been amazed by the Ketamine. So many doctors seem to be so scared of it, and the more experience and research I do with it makes me not understand why. Truthfully, I blame Nancy Reagan and her damn drug war, but I tend to blame her for a lot of things. Ketamine can be psychologically addictive, but it is not physically addictive. I have taken ketamine at times daily for two weeks straight. When I stopped I was very surprised to find that the only withdrawal (if you can even call it that) was that I was little cranky for a day or two. Nothing a bong hit or two couldn't help. Another thing that is a amazing is it's short duration of action. Most times the amount I take does not inebriate me much and I can go about my day just fine--when I have had heavy hitters and I go for a higher dose it can be pretty intoxicating but it really only lasts about an hour. You don't get stupid like alcohol or opiates either--you are very aware of the intoxication and you don't want to do stupid things like drive a car or french kiss your cousin. I will say this though, a heavy dose is just weird. I have done a lot of drugs and the only thing I could compare it to is a really strange nitrous oxide trip. As a "dissociative" it can "distance" you from things, I don't know how else to put it. Even when it does not work completely for me and I switch to the big guns like Imitrex, it still seems like a lifesaver. Sometimes it can take 20 min for a shot of trex to work for me--and anybody with clusters knows that 20 minutes is just to long. The Ketamine distances me and tones down the pain, making it a hell of a lot easier to wait it out. So many Doctors are willing to prescribe narcotics that you build tolerance to rapidly for pain, cause physical addiction, constipate the hell out of you, lead to depression and withdrawal...the list of negative effects of the opiates is ridiculous (and yes, I still use them from time to time) For regular, non cluster pain, the combination of Ketamine and opiates seems to be a much better choice than just regular opiates--mostly because the pain relief is more complete and you can take less of the physically addictive opiates. When I was having some really painful teeth work done I was going for the hydrocodone and Cannabis mnixture (another great thing that can lower your needed intake of Opiates) and it worked all right but I was still in a good bit of pain. This seemed like it was eventually causing a cluster which I would take my Ketamine for--and the tooth pain would just disappear. I don't think the Ketamine alone would do it at the low doses I was using, but it seemed like the combo kicked ass. Here is a link to "Postoperative Ketamine Can Reduce Morphine Consumption and Nausea" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2605142/ One study on Intraoperative ketamine showed that "We have demonstrated that intraoperative preventative ketamine reduces opiate consumption in the acute postoperative period by 37% in opiate-dependent patients with chronic pain who are undergoing painful back surgery. In addition, it seems to reduce pain intensity postoperatively in the PACU and at 6 weeks and to reduce consumption of morphine at the first postoperative visit. The findings of this study add considerably to the body of literature pertaining to the efficacy of ketamine in preventative NMDA receptor antagonism." http://ether.stanford.edu/Ortho/Intraoperative%20Ketamine%20Reduces%20Perioperative%20Opiate.pdf To me, it sounds like if a Cluster patient has tried just about everything and ends up on Opiates, it would be a damn good idea to mix ketamine in there too. Another thing about the Nitrous oxide--it is in the same class as Ketamine (NMDA receptor antagonists) so it's not that strange for them to have similarities. A big thing to be aware of though is that for me they seem to work synergistically. When I went to the dentist with a cluster I took a good 10 sprays then sat down and had them put the nitrous mask on--within a few minutes it was complete interdimensisional travel. Many of the specifics are a little fuzzy, but I could see all the dimensions of the verse (as I call it, because the Uni-verse would imply a singular space instead of the infinite unbounding cosmos that I was experiencing) splayed out like a deck of cards being shuffled. I could see into all the dimensions and I could see that my own dimension, the one where I was having a crown done in a dentist office was going downhill fast. I knew that if I didn't intervene, everything everywhere was going to dissolve into nothingness. Then I retreated to being a very small, shy child in the corner of a very dark room. Part of me was urging this child to DO SOMETHING! SAVE THE VERSE" and the little child would reply, "but I'm scared...I don't know if I can" Eventually convinced that every cosmos everywhere was about to be completely annihilated I slowly put the effort into raising my hand. It was like the air was complete thick tar, it might have been the most effort I ever put into anything. As it slowly got into the air I felt more and more exuberance---"I'm SAVING THE WORLD!" About this time was when the dental hygenist looked in and found me sitting calmly with my hand in the air. She came in and asked me if I was ok--to which I gave no reply and stared at the wall as if I had no idea she was there. They promptly stopped the nitrous and I came back to earth, aware of the unbelievable beauty and strength of the world, the verse and myself. I was not aware until a few minutes later that I was in a dentist chair with a couple of worried hygenists looking in at me. Then I started laughing hilariously and asking them "what the hell just happened" To which they replied "I have no idea" The rest of the appointment was kinda rough on me and the dentist, mostly because no one had any idea that I had saved everything everywhere (You're welcome folks, just another day's work ) and no one had any idea why I kept erupting into maniacal laughter. So the lesson is--be real careful with the nitrous ketamine combo--unless of course, you're into that kinda thing. It was pretty cool. -Ricardo BTW--thanks Doc, for all your input. Your presence on here could make a big difference for the folks that want to try this and are meeting resistance with their doctors.

Same here. I am finally able to work a full time job. I have in no way beaten my clusters, but life sure is a hell of a lot easier.

A little too far away for me, but lucks pretty interesting. They even mention clusters in the write up. Psychedelic Medicine: A Paradigm Shift http://www.jibc.ca/programs-courses/schools-departments/school-community-social-justice/centre-counselling-community-safety/special-events/psychedelic-medicine

When I try to go straight to Clusterbusters.com I'm getting this message [highlight]The site does not exist. (Not) hosted by Wikidot.[/highlight] Anybody else? I got here fine from the link at Clusterheadaches.com, but the direct link isn't working for me.

One thing that should be noted as far as Derek not using O2...He's got a regulator that goes to SIXTY LPMs. My bet is that it would be hard to be doing it wrong at that high a flow rate, and I would bet it's really easy to tell if it's working. I went through a lot of O2 before I gave up and acknowledged that it wasn't working and I'm hesitant to try again because all it has been is disappointment. I don't blame him at all for not attempting the O2 anymore. If it doesn't help the cluster all it is is infuriating and you would be hard pressed to get me to try it again. If his Neuro is open to it I bet my Neuro would be willing to send out a little info on the Ketamine he has been prescribing patients. Changed my life. -Ricardo