Ricardo

Much appreciated folks! It's not till Friday... but for all you guys, I'm gonna start celebrating right now

One big thing I'm not understanding is why are you singling out dopamine? It is related to the hypothalamus as an endocrine hormone that gets released, but so is Thyrotropin releasing hormone, Growth Hormone releasing hormone, Somatostatin, Gonadotropin releasing hormone, Corticotropin releasing hormone, Oxytocin, and vasopressin....Why Dopamine? Similarly, Orgasm does produce a rush of Dopamine, but it produces a rush of all sorts of other hormones too... To me, this whole thread might make more sense to get rid of the idea of Dopamine altogether, and ask "is excessive masturbation causing my clusters?" Still pretty doubtful to me, but I guess every question is worth asking. For me, I am pretty much positive that this is not happening. I do not watch nearly enough porn to justify the number or frequency of hits that I get, and there has never been any sort of correlation between my clusters how much sex or "me time" that I get. I will say this though, I get hit with a cluster any time I have green tea, and I have never met anyone that has this as a trigger. Everyone is different, maybe porn and "being able to get off exactly as you want to" as you say, is triggering you. Still doubtful. I would just eat some shrooms, rent some Debby Does Dallas and enjoy your life. -Ricardo

You've got to have variations in your experiment. To help you out, I'll watch as much porn as humanly possible and see if I notice an uptick in my clusters.... -Ricardo

I think Potter is just being a stickler with terminology. He's saying technically, you plant seeds in the soil (instead of saying growing plants), you culture yeast (instead of growing yeast), you innoculate a medium for mushrooms (instead of saying you grow mushrooms) All he was really trying to say (if I have him correct) is that technically when she should have said (in order to be superfragalistically correct in terms of mushroom terminology) "how do you get the spores into water when you want to innoculate your medium?" -Ricardo

What I bet would work really well would be to make your mushrooms into a tea using as little water as possible. Then put the tea into a small tray and use really low heat and (maybe some silica gel) to evaporate all the water out of it. (not that hard, done it a few times) What you're left with is a tarry black goo, and if SPUT is working for you, I bet scraping up just a little and putting it under your tongue would work pretty well. -Ricardo

I'm sure there is, but I would be careful...In these days of people being extremely scared of terrorism, I think these types of things are watched pretty well...You don't want to get on the wrong list just because you are trying to treat your headaches. This sounds to me like the way to go. I bet if you shopped around at Garden Stores in Czech/Germany you could probably find what you are after. The ridiculousness of this situation is insane. I really feel for you. Someday this goddamn drug war will be over, and people will realize that it's not worth it, it never was worth it and never will be worth it. I'll try and rack my brain for some other option that might help and actually be legal where you are... -Ricardo

You and your guy helped so much when I first came to the board I will be eternally grateful for your generosity and kindness, and it makes me sad to know that you guys are suffering again. Anything we can do, just ask. I'm gonna send you some info on Mandrake. Might help. -Ricardo

With that huge of an amount of Triptans being taken, I would bet a lot of these clusters are Imitrex rebounds. I was having the same thing and I found it very hard to get off of them, as O2 doesn't work for me at all. What did work for me was to just keep using less triptans, and to always try a half a shot at first. There are still definitely times I need a whole shot, but most times half will do it. I would just keep busting and if it gets to be too much, take the half a shot. Always take as little as possible, only when it gets real bad. It might take a little while but I bet you guys will get to less and less Imitrex and eventually kick it for good. The real thing that saved me was intranasal Ketamine, but many doctors are not into prescribing that. -Ricardo

For a good while people have made connections with Tyramine and migraine headaches I have never heard of it connected to clusters, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. I explored this with myself and found no connection. The thing I never understood though, was why doctors just leave it at, you react to Tyramine--stop eating Tyramine. The thing that I've never heard of being explored is --why? Tyramine gets broken down very well by both MAO A and MAO B enzyme (this is probably why your headaches got worse when you went on a MAO inhibitor) To me it sounds like people who are reacting to Tyramine are walking around like they are on MAO inhibitors all they time.  It sounds like MAO enzymes are not working correctly, and I would think this is a big deal. I could be wrong, but I would guess this could make medications you are taking stronger (and work somewhat differently) I agree completely on the connection between gut and brain--I was having grand mal seizures from a undiagnosed gluten allergy for years. Have you looked into food allergies at all? -Ricardo

I have heard reports of Amitriptyline making psychedelics act stronger, but not in a good way. It can sometimes cause your trips to be stronger and scarier. Go easy when you start trying to bust again. -Ricardo

Ah hell, Ricky wasn't such a bad guy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu6Ra59RSis Thanks Jeebs

These guys have been really good for me... http://www.ktbotanicals.com/ipomoea-morning-glory-seeds-p-85.html Their shipping policy makes it sound like they will send them to you. "Do you ship world wide? YES! However, we cannot be held accountable for your country's customs policies and is very important that you understand this before ordering. If you order something that your customs office does not approve of, we will not replace or refund your order! If your country's mailing service is unreliable, we will not refund or replace your order. Please check with your country's customs to ensure that the items you are ordering are legal and not resticted by customs. Typically, smaller packages will arrive in about 10 days, larger boxes may take 2 weeks depending on location. Please note that international shipping times vary considerably from country to country. We ask that you please allow 21 days before contacting us regarding an international shipment. Good luck, I'll keep my eyes open for more sources... -Ricardo

Thank you all for the kind words, my friends. It is appreciated more than you could ever know. -Ricardo

So a while back I went way overboard and said a bunch of things that I should not have. I wanted to wait a little while and let things cool down...I wanted to apologize sooner, but I thought it might be better to let some time go by. Don't think I took the situation lightly or that I haven't thought about it a good bit since then. I think I really pissed some people off, and hurt some feelings and I regret it deeply. I would love to throw out the excuse that I was miserable at the time after I lost one of my best friends in the world, my wonderful canine friend that had stood by my side for years...But the truth is that regardless of what is going on in my life I can not take it out on others that have nothing to do with the situation.  I had some points to be made and I made them in all the wrong ways, and all I can do is apologize. The biggest thing I know is that I should have been looking for a shoulder to cry on, not somebody to argue with and all I can do is try to remember this. Like everybody else, I'm learning everyday how to be a better person, and I hope people that I have angered or offended can forgive me. Special apologies to the moderators for causing drama. I'm just going to keep trying. -Ricardo

Jerry Garcia & David Crosby - The Perro Sessions

I bet Psilocybin works great for getting rid of the depression that comes along with the idea that cancer is going to kill you... Another way is to beat your cancer with super potent marijuana extracts--No depression, no cancer, still alive. If you haven't heard of Rick Simpson's "run from the cure" Watch this important info- Sorry for hi-jacking...back to mushrooms and depression http://hypocritereader.com/13/antidepressants http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/24/145731952/your-brain-on-psilocybin-might-be-less-depressed -Ricardo

"There was a notorious 2002 study in which MDMA was supposedly given to monkeys in an equivalent dose to that taken by users and it caused death and Parkinson’s disease. But, it turned out that the drug used was actually methamphetamine in an overdose… That was one of the worse examples of scientific corruption I have ever seen.  When they tried to publish that paper, the referees said that there’s something wrong. It was rejected by Science, but one of your senators put pressure on Science [to publish it]. It really was a low point we knew it was wrong, but we didn’t know why it wrong." The schmuck responsible for this study (George Ricaurte) should be in jail. http://www.maps.org/mdma/studyresponse.html

I have to admit, I amazed that Indo is even allowed on the market anymore. Here's one account of a 15 year old who almost died after taking THREE doses of 50 mg Indo. It can give you life threatening problems that do not necessarily give any warning signs or symptoms and it can do it in one day. How is this even considered a real option? http://apamedcentral.org/search.php?where=aview&id=10.0000%2Fsmj.2011.52.4.e82&code=0022SMJ&vmode=FULL

Good Find!

http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/5/3459814/ketamine-depression-relief-yale

Me, I go for bong hits. Definitely bong hits...

After thinking about it again, Sumatriptan has saved my ass more time than I can count.... The more options the better!

Back in February Purple posted this: Thus, at the University of Caen, the team of Valerie Collot, professor of pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from animal or vegetable), is working on the development of analogs of psilocybin that would allow to set free from the hallucinogenic effects while improving memory. She says: "Our interest goes back in 2009, when an article by a Japanese team had shown that activation of certain serotonin receptors enhanced the memory." It so happens that these receptors, type 5-HT2C , have a strong affinity with psilocybin. The art of the Lower Normandy team will now be to synthesize compounds that mimic this affinity without presenting yet another one for the 5-HT2A receptor, which appears to be involved in the "a little more embarrassing." hallucinogenic effects. This type of chemistry is complex, because you have to find ligands both potent and selective, which do not interfere with other, and numerous, serotonin receptors,. "In mice, early results are quite encouraging, says the researcher. But to pass to humans, it will take several years of study. " Test compounds are not derived from psilocybin. "We synthesize them in five or six steps, then we optimize them." Is there a risk of falling on a hallucinogenic compound? "It is always possible, but I have not seen any particular effects on people who handle them. "All operations are done under vacuumed hood, so for one to expose oneself to the products like didn't hesitate to do Albert Hofmann - the creator of LSD, who also isolated psilocybin in the late 1950s - it should be wanting . "Early in my career I have experienced supervisors who tasted their prod ucts," said Valerie Collot. But she assures this "is ancient history." So there are people working on non-hallucinogenic versions of psilocybin...unfortunately there is absolutely no info that can I can find, anywhere at all, on this. Maybe we should write to the University of Caen and see if we can get a little more info. Something to remember though, is that it may not be a miracle drug. Many people have found DMT to work very well for their clusters, which makes you wonder if a non-hallucinogenic version of DMT would work for us---but we have it and it sucks. It's called Sumatriptan, which you could also call "Sulphonated" DMT, or DMT with a sulfur molecule added on to it to make it "non-hallucinogenic"   Two substances that have grabbed my attention are CEY-19 and CZ-74, analogs of psilocybin that are hallucinogenic but don't last as long as psilocybin. If we can ever get feds to let us have hallucinatory drugs, this is what I would bet on. Mostly because it would allow them to treat us without actually admitting that a substance that they have deemed to have "no medicinal value" actually saves lives. -Ricardo

I have had quite a few times where I have taken imitrex after a bust, and it has always worked just fine. With me, it also seems more important to mind the "no imitrex before a bust" then the "no imitrex after a bust". I have had a number of times where the day or two after busting I have taken a half an imitrex shot and still gotten a good long lasting "busting" effect. Biggest thing that sets me back is the trex for more than 2 days in a row. -Ricardo

Exactly! I was mixing the 2 up...