tommyd

Dr. Alexander Shulgin died yesterday, June 2, at the age of 89. He was a pioneer in the research and synthesis of psychedelic substances. Sleep well, Sasha. http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/shulgin_alexander/

And this from an on-line paper, "The Paper" from Houston: Relief For Those Suffering The Debilitating Pain Of A Cluster Headaches Published by The Editor on Tue, 04/15/2014 - 07:00 Richmond, VA, April 15, 2014 - A cluster headache, dubbed 'killer' or 'suicide' because of its intensity, has been described as the most severe form of pain a human can endure – even worse than childbirth, according to some women.... ...ClusterBusters, Inc. is an IRS-approved 501 © (3) non-profit research and educational organization dedicated to finding effective treatment of cluster headaches worldwide. Their Mission Statement reflects their ongoing efforts involving the research, education, support and advocacy related to cluster headaches. Robert A. Wold, president and founder, is also on the board of directors for The Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy, and is vice-chair of American Headache and Migraine Association (affiliated with ACHE and AHS).... http://fatcatwebproductions.com/ThePaper_2014/md-thenews/content/relief-those-suffering-debilitating-pain-cluster-headaches

This from KSBY channel 6 in San Luis Obispo/Santa Barbara: Apr 14, 2014 1:31 PM by Keli Moore, KSBY News What is a cluster headache? Imagine having a headache worse than a migraine. Cluster headaches come in cyclical patterns or "clusters." They are widely misunderstood, so researchers are calling for more funding to find ways to treat the condition. A young Arroyo Grande man is also joining the cause. Austin Jamerson recently traveled to Washington, D.C. with a group called "Cluster Busters." The rest, with video, at: http://www.ksby.com/news/what-is-a-cluster-headache-/

Spotted this on Reddit at www.reddit.com/r/clusterheads/ Magic mushrooms' effects illuminated in brain imaging studies January 24, 2012 Source:Imperial College London Brain scans of people under the influence of the psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, have given scientists the most detailed picture to date of how psychedelic drugs work. The findings of two studies being published in scientific journals this week identify areas of the brain where activity is suppressed by psilocybin and suggest that it helps people to experience memories more vividly. ... Similarly, psilocybin reduced blood flow in the hypothalamus, where blood flow is increased during cluster headaches, perhaps explaining why some sufferers have said symptoms improved under psilocybin... The rest at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120123152043.htm

Cindy Reynolds in the video on KVAL out of Eugene, OR "This came on out of the blue when I was 15 years old," she recalled. "Absolutely the most exquisite terrifying pain a person can have." http://www.kval.com/news/health/Cluster-Headaches-Medicare-Oxygen-Suicide-Disease-246020481.html

Longtime Sufferers of Cluster Headaches Find Relief in Psychedelics Yes, it’s a thing. About a year ago, I attended a conference at a Boston-area university. I joined the ranks of experts and students playing session-hooky in the hallways. The conversation turned to MDMA, and its use in treating veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. A doctor turned to me and whispered, “You think that’s something? You should see what psychedelic mushrooms are doing for patients with cluster headaches!” Intrigued, I asked, “What?!” ...then they talk to some old (61, he claims) fellow named Bob. The rest at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/05/longtime-sufferers-of-cluster-headaches-find-relief-in-psychedelics.html

Lisa and Jason in Marlborough, with quotes from Bob. http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/article/20140202/NEWS/140209632/11575/LIFESTYLE/?tag=1 Marlborough man seeks answers on cluster headaches Lisa and Jason Cameron of Marlborough are going to Washington D.C. to lobby Congress for more money into research of cluster headaches. Daily News Staff Photo / Allan Jung By Anamika Roy Daily News Staff Posted Feb. 2, 2014 @ 12:01 am MARLBOROUGH - It's been called the worst kind of pain known to the medical world. One patient describes it as “a red-hot ice pick going into your temple.” It's not a migraine. They’re called cluster headaches and cause excruciating pain around the eye. Attacks often occur without warning and the pain can strike as much as eight times per day for 15 minutes to an hour at a time. Jason Cameron, 44, of Marlborough has been suffering from cluster headaches for over 10 years. He gets 200 attacks a day. Each attack lasts between a few seconds to a minute. Later this month, Cameron and his wife will travel to Washington D.C. with a group to lobby for more funding for research into the causes and treatments for cluster headaches. - See more at: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/article/20140202/NEWS/140209632/11575/LIFESTYLE/?tag=1#sthash.E3XWbntS.dpuf

"The Worst Possible Pain?" ...but the best possible treatment. Featuring our own Bob Wold: For Bob Wold, founder of the non-profit cluster headache research and advocacy organization, Clusterbusters, none of the medications he tried worked. “All of the different medications that people use for clusters are hand-me-downs, usually from migraine treatments, anti-seizure medications, or blood pressure medications…I had pretty much tried all of the different medications that were available, and so I was contemplating having gamma knife surgery. They clamp your head down and shoot radiation into your brain, killing off part of your brain. I had been approved for that surgery at Northwestern.” He decided to try one last thing first, something he’d read about online. A couple doses of psilocybin mushrooms, which are classified as a Schedule I drug, broke a cycle he says he’d been stuck in for months, when nothing else could. “I canceled the surgery and haven’t looked back since,” he says. The rest at: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/cluster-headaches-the-worst-possible-pain/281524/

Great music and musicians out of Canada: Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, (most of) The Band, Heart, Bachman-Turner, Guess Who (whatever became of Burton Cummings?) Steppenwolf (yes I'm old enough to remember the Guess Who and Steppenwolf), and probably a bunch more I can't think of right now and a lot of new bands I never heard of. And yeah, we tried to invade Canada 201 years ago, but I hope you've forgiven us by now. (You kicked our ass after all.)

I recall the battles CArl helped wage to try and enlighten OUCH UK, and his active and valuable participation on the American boards. I never met him in person, but his big heart was obvious even in ASCII. He was truly a Cluster Hero and will be sorely missed. My sympathies to his wife, family and friends. -tommyD

Not as famous as Radcliffe for sure, but Noa Ganor, a star of the Isreali national women's basketball team, told the newspaper Haaretz she has clusters, though the paper decides to call it migraines. "The younger Ganor has also suffered from a rare condition, cluster headaches, since age 15. It is a type of migraine that attacks one side of the face, located in or above the eye. Ganor says that four years ago she practiced with the national team but the migraines forced her to quit. "It happens once every two years, like clockwork," she says, adding that acupuncture has kept it away for the past few years." http://www.haaretz.com/news/sports/basketball-w-profile-she-can-t-get-no-satisfaction-1.436833

Bringing a tryptamine treatment like BOL 148 to market for migraineurs would very likely help clusterheads. And Teri Robert is writing in a blog targeted at migraineurs and doing what she has often done - increase awareness of cluster headache to migraineurs and their supporters, as well as the public in general. When I said she was an old friend, I meant it. Did you miss this part of the article? "The following nonprofit organizations agreed and have endorsed purple as the awareness color for Migraine and all headache disorders: The American Headache Society (AHS) Clusterbusters MAGNUM (The National Migraine Association) The Migraine Research Foundation (MRF) The National Headache Foundation (NHF) O.U.C.H (The Organization for Understanding Cluster Headache) The PFO Research Foundation."

let's not go lumpin' the CH and the migraines together too much. I know how you feel, Jeff & bejeeber, but remember: there's about half a million clusterheads in the US, if that many, and eleventy-trillion migraineurs... Clusterheads alone will get very little attention with any color. Also remember our little tryptamine trick just might work on migraines too...and development depends on market here in the Western World.

Our old friend Teri Robert reports that several headache organizations have agreed that PURPLE is now the official color of migraine and headache awareness. Apparently she's been lobbying for this for a while. See: http://migraine.com/blog/news/purple-for-migraine/

From Nature: Psychedelic chemical subdues brain activity Magic mushrooms' active ingredient constrains control centres. Mo Costandi 23 January 2012 Far from expanding your mind, the hallucinogenic chemical found in magic mushrooms induces widespread decreases in brain activity, researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.... ...The researchers also observed reduced blood flow to the hypothalamus, and suggest that this explains anecdotal reports that psychedelics alleviate symptoms of cluster headaches, which are associated with increased hypothalamic activity. However, Nutt’s findings conflict with those of other studies. “We have completed a number of similar studies and we always saw an activation of these same areas,” says Franz Vollenweider at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. “We gave the drug orally and waited an hour, but they administered it intravenously just before the scans, so one explanation is that the effects were not that strong.” The rest at: http://www.nature.com/news/psychedelic-chemical-subdues-brain-activity-1.9878 Also a story in the in the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sns-rt-us-brain-magic-mushroomstre80m20b-20120123,0,1763641.story And in EurekAlert: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/icl-mme012312.php

Halpern crows about BOL-148 in an article by the Bloomberg news service. Already, LSD and psilocybin research by psychiatrist John Halpern at Harvard has led to a drug, dubbed BOL-148, being developed by Boston-based startup Entheogen Corp. The company is studying BOL-148, an LSD derivative, as a treatment for cluster headaches, sometimes called suicide headaches because theyÂ’re so painful that sufferers often kill themselves, said Halpern, EntheogenÂ’s co-founder. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/-magic-mushrooms-return-to-psychology-labs-40-years-after-leary.html

Thanks for the kind words, folks, but please - don't thank me - it makes me feel guilty since this was supposed to be done like two years ago. and besides, this really isn't my "book." It's just a rewrite of the information (plus chapters by CHfather and the OUCH-UK folks) the ClusterBusters and other pioneers of the tryptamine treatment have developed over the years and posted on the ClusterBusters' sites and DJ's CH.com site. So don't thank me, thank them. It's the least I could do for being allowed to have a life in spite of the beast. If anybody wants a pdf file of the entire thing, send me a PM.  If you want it on a disk, please include your surface mail address. If you want an email with pdf file attached (it's about 3.1 MB) please include an e-mail address. Stay PF Edited to add: And much thanks to our intrepid moderators alleyoop and FunGuy for getting all those posts on the board properly.

Don't go to sleep on me now, just a few more. An auction over lunch and some folks did an acoustic set Saturday evening. The basket of wine brought big bucks. Marsha bought the sexy cop outfit (for her daughter-in-law, she claims) then made Bob put in on and got out the handcuffs and...do we really want to know the sordid details? Shroom worship Shroom pastry Some talented young folks on Saturday night

Of course this was a conference and there was some good info and some good news to chew over. Bob addresses the conference the first day. The biggest turnout for a 'Buster meet yet. Dr. Larry Robbins is an encyclopedia of headache knowledge Bob gives the update Doug gives a presentation on Oxygen Dr. John Halpern reports on the research. Larry Schor leads another of his powerful sessions on life as a clusterhead. Day 2: The Expert Panel Larry Schor walks the walk because he's lived it A serious Bob Dr. Brian McGeeny is a neurologist who provided valuable insights Bob closes out the conference

I made a real pest of myself in the President's Reception Room. Clusterheads rarely smile so much as when the meet up with other heads... Doug bent over backwards to organize the whole thing. He did such a good job I think we should have him to it next year, and the year after, and well forever...

Okay, well it took me three days to figure out how to get pictures to show up on the board, but I finally did it so prepare to be bored, it's slide show time... The proud grampa Some docs and Giselle You don't wanna know what they were seeing on that laptop screen... Red, Sherri and Marsha Grins More grins Not karaoke, so I don't know what they were doing... Doug in the middle of a room full of clusterheads

This is the news magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - a very mainstream and well-respected bunch. They also publish the high-caliber journal Science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Science

Screw Timothy Leary. The idea of treating migraines and clusters with LSD and other tryptamines was already developing when Leary burst on the scene. He was not in the vanguard - LSD had been investigated for 15 or so years before he got involved and screwed things up. From the article:

Question. One of the articles said that psilocybin is illegal in all states except new Mexico and Florida...is that true? No. It is illegal in all states. The spores of psilocybin mushrooms are legal to possess for scientific and educational purposes, except in California, Georgia and Idaho, because the spores contain no psilocybin or psilocin. In some states, it is legal to possess psilocybin mushrooms if they are growing on your property without your knowledge. What you're supposed to do once you find out they're there, I don't know. Eat the evidence, I guess.

For another good intersection between jazz and rock, check out Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, particularly the live stuff, like "Here come the Noisemakers," and the soon to be released "Bride of the Noisemakers." Pure jazz fans should try Bruce's "Camp Meeting," with Christian McBride and Jack DeJohnette. And for Bluegrass, "Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby." Can you tell I'm a fan?