Thoro

Yes. I am, in fact, wrapping the container with the water and seeds in aluminium foil to keep light out and keeping it in the fridge to keep it cool. I'm not sure where I read it, but I do remember someone saying the crushed seeds lose some potency if exposed to too much light. On an update-y note: third attempt, 75 seeds this time, soaked in water for several hours and then mixed with peppermint tea. Nothing. Not a hint of an effect either way. I'm going to try again in 5 days' time, this time with 100 seeds. Good thing I ordered enough to last for a few attempts!

So, yeah. Second try, 50 seeds with the peppermint solution, as the message seemed to be that that would enhance the effectivess. Still no luck. Not a lick of difference to the nightly attacks, nothing. I want to exhaust my options with the RC seeds before I try the mushrooms, primarily because I have no idea where to get them. Should I try again with a significantly higher dosage? I kind of suspected this would be the result, what with my chemical resistance to everything ever, but it's still a little disheartening to finally cave and try something I've been skeptical to because of the murky legality and all, only for there not to be a flicker of relief. At this rate, I may end up having to go sniffing around in the nearby forests, hills and such for fungal remedies.

As it happens, I do have some peppermint tea. Or rather, it's green tea with peppermint -- will that do? If not, I'm sure it's possible to get some actual peppermint tea from somewhere nearby. I really want this thing to work, I'm a little wary of trying the 'harder' stuff, like mushrooms. Hallucinations really aren't my cup of tea.

So, update. Having gone off the lamotrigine(I waited a week, to be sure it was all out of my system), I finally decided to try out a dose of RC seeds on Saturday morning after the night's bout, before going to bed. I ground 50 seeds thoroughly in a mortar, let them soak in water in the fridge for a couple of hours, mixed the nasty gunk with juice to be able to stomach it, and downed it all, and... Nothing. Not so much as a flicker of nausea, no tiredness, no effects or side effects whatsoever. The clusters showed up regular as clockwork, with no change in character at all. So I'm kinda full of questions. Have I gotten a bad batch of seeds? Did I use too few? Should I now wait five days before trying again, and should I increase the dose for my second try? If so, by how much? It should be noted that I have a generally freakishly high resistance to pretty much anything, so I'm wondering if that's a factor. I've never had a buzz from caffeine no matter how much I've drunk, I can drunk a pub full of Irishmen under the table(or could, anyway, before the clusters) and only feel kind of tipsy, analgesics simply don't work on me, and so on. Funny story about that -- when I was just four years old I was in hospital for surgery to correct a lazy eye, and the surgeons had the hardest time getting me to go under the anaesthetic: they'd give me a normal dose for my age and size, and I'd be fully awake and aware, smiling up at them. In the end they had to give me twice the dosage usually required to get an adult under; that was as high as they dared to go for fear they'd end up killing me. In the end I finally went under, though, and according to my parents I spent the next couple of days stoned out of my mind on residual effects from the anaesthesia. Any kind of feedback is, as usual, appreciated!

Well, it's been a pretty bad month or so. The intensity of the hits has ramped up significantly, and they last longer these days as well. I "caved" not long after my first post and went to the All Salvia website to order a couple of packs of RC seeds to try out. Fate being a fickle bugger, the package got delayed by three weeks, then stopped in customs, and they wanted permission to open it. Rather than doing that I asked them to return it to sender, and got the sender to send another package... which has finally arrived. I'm now looking at 8 little plastic bags of about 100 seeds each, and the thought strikes me that I really have no idea how much to take, how to prepare them and so on. So I'd like some feedback from the rest of you, if you'd indulge me: for those of you who use RC seeds, how many do you take per bust, how do you prepare them, and what, if any, side effects(nausea, etc.) do you get? Lastly, I'm also still taking Lamictal(lamotrigine), an anticonvulsant sodium channel blocker that's the latest of a long string of what feels like my neurologist just trying stuff out on the off chance it might work. Looking at the information available for it, it's said to have relatively few drug interactions, but I still worry that it might interfere with the busting. Thoughts/advice? Should I detox completely before going ahead with a bust attempt? Any feedback is much appreciated.

Hi, all. 37 year old Norwegian "newbie" clusterhead here. Apologies in advance for a wordy post. I've been reading this board for a little while now, having registered in September last year. I was diagnosed with cluster headaches in late May 2010 after a series of attacks that started off very strong -- my first attack ever was in the middle of a crowded mall on a Saturday; I seriously thought I was having a brain aneurysm or a giant tumour had popped up or something. After a few days of increasingly regular attacks I finally managed to drag my carcass to my doctor, who promptly had me admitted to the local hospital. I'd been having an unusually long bout of migraine before and during the first attacks, so they thought the two might be linked. However, as the migraine trickled away, the cluster attacks stayed. All sorts of painkillers, blood pressure and migraine medication were tried, to no avail. After about two weeks the attacks stopped abruptly; the doctors assumed it was because of the verapamil they'd put me on, gave me a prescription and sent me home. Less than a week later, however, the attacks started up again, this time during the night. They've not stopped since, but only increased in frequency and length of bouts. I haven't been to the hospital except for scans and tests since, either. My current specialist is a professor of neurology, considered one of the country's leading experts on headache conditions. Since May-June of last year, I've tried a plethora of various medication, some with serious side effects, none with any actual effect on the attacks. So far the only thing that's been proven to work for me is oxygen; it cuts down on the length of an individual attack, but does nothing for the actual pain level. Being chronic, I have attacks every day, or rather night: starting from about 1:30 AM, each attack lasting between 15 and 30 minutes depending on how fast I manage to get the oxygen mask on and how high the flow is. Between attacks I get from 45 minutes to an hour of no pain before it starts up again -- this goes on until well into the day, sometimes even into the afternoon. When it's done for the day, all I can do is collapse into bed and sleep. This doesn't leave much in the way of a social life, it's turned me into a hermit. The family helps as much as they can, but the sheer relentlessness of the attacks is taking its toll on them too. I'm grateful, in a way, that I don't have a significant other or children; I doubt I could have managed to take care of them in any way. I am not a smoker - haven't smoked at all, ever - and touch alcohol only extremely rarely. I'm not in terrible shape, but could be better, and try to eat healthy food. So far I've tried every painkiller under the sun, various triptans(sumatriptan, rizatriptan, zolmitriptan), naproxen, propranolol, prednisolone, verapamil, indomethacin, lithium, methysergide(Deseril), and none have affected the attacks in the slightest. I'm currently ramping up to a medicinal dose of lamotrigin... but truth be told, I'm starting to suspect it won't work either. I'm nearing the end of my rope. The relentlessness of the nightly/daily attacks is destroying my life and my will to go on. My father, a retired policeman, is now the one trying to convince me to try other solutions, after traditional medicine(and some alternative; I've tried both acupuncture and osteopathy, with no success) has failed. He's even threatened to go picking mushrooms in the forest and making me try it, so I thought I'd better talk to the people who know about the proven effects of these alternate methods. I have, of course, read the FAQs and instructions, and will be trying to compile a to-do list in order to be as systematic as possible in my approach... but it's still a somewhat daunting prospect. Questions, comments, etc. are welcome, of course, and if you managed to plow through all that, thanks for being a patient reader.