Research on new tryptamine option

[par]

I'm not on anything else apart from D3. I tried melaton, but did not enjoy coming downstairs to get O2 when hardly able to walk - was stupidly tired, but still needed to hit the pain. I tried 5xrec dose - and still could not sleep through that.

Stomach upsets not really my thing. Digestion is very good. Possibly I have less cafeine of a weekend, and kids are home - so maybe stress level is higher - not sure.

All in all, this cycle has been less intense but far longer. I still think that I prefer this to a shorter, though more painful, verapamil/sumatriptan dosed cycle. But it is now getting annoying, I just hope I haven't moved to a chronic condition.

[Lieutenant2]

Thanks again, Par. I've actually been looking for somebody who has used tryptamines and the D3 regimen together. Chemically, they should play well together. But it is an interesting thing to study.

I do know several people who have gone from episodic to chronic, and most of them will swear it was because of the pharmaceuticals, especially triptans. Heavy sumatriptan users and a couple heavy topamax users have gone chronic.

I hope you haven't turned chronic, but if it happens, there was an interesting discussion about this at the conference a year ago. Dr. Larry Schorr is a psychologist who has episodic CH, and he was talking about how thankful he was not to be chronic. I used to be chronic, and several of us actually believe we'd rather be chronic. I never sat around worried about my next cycle, stressing over when it would start. I knew when I was going to get attacks:  24/7/365. No surprises. Sounds crazy, but there's some truth in it.

To give you a little hope here. . .I talked to one guy in Nashville last weekend, a chronic with multiple headache types. He hasn't had a PF day in 18 months. He started taking 5-MeO-DALT in 15mg doses every five days like clockwork. It took a few doses, but he's now getting 2-3 days PF between doses. He went the entire weekend PF, including drinking and airline travel, usually big triggers. After re-reading Halpern's research, I am more convinced than ever that the timing is important. With this treatment, we are trying to level out serotonin. It gets poured in, and is supposed to drain out at the same rate. We CHers have bad drains. With the tryptamines, we are temporarily "blocking" the drain. Because it's a time-sensitive neurotransmitter, we have to plug the drain at regular intervals. Again, just my theory. . .but it seems to have merit.

[par]

With the D3 - I was wondering what the deal with that is. I got a reading of 30 (not sure of measure), but was about half the level I expected. I generally suffer CH bi-annually - which to me was odd !! Could it be that D3 takes a time to sink low, then CH cuts in and causes D3 to rise in someway - possibly with the bodies need to walk/pace around. AND - this time with O2 and light CH (due to MM and MEO), I have not needed to pace and generally sit whilst o2'ing - and hence a very much extended cycle as d3 levels remain low.

I think I will get a new reading and see whats what. Is there anything exactly I should ask for when getting a D3 blood test ?

I have not actually been taking D3 regimen - but will start - I was just taking 10000 units from time to time when I remembered.

Am a little all over the place a bit.

btw: following dose on Sat night, 1 night CH, 1 PF night and then 3 night CH last night. However, daytimes appear to be relatively clear - just the odd ghost.

Oh, and if I sleep sitting in a chair, I will also go PF.

Its all very odd

[Lieutenant2]

Hey Par. Well, I won't pretend to be the expert on the D3 regimen. I will only share my personal experience that myself and every other chronic that I know has tried it, it has worked for a while, then has stopped working. Episodics seem to have better luck. This leads me to believe that it's an immune system buffer. So, your cluster headaches are still there, but high enough levels of calcidiol tell your immune system to "chill out for a while", and not to stab you in the eye. But after a while, your immune system just has to react to a perceived threat. (That's really what our pain is. . .our immune system freaking out over an invisible threat and reacting inappropriately). In terms of blood test, it's a 25(OH)D screen (pronounced "25 hydroxyvitamin D"). From what I read, it takes supplements in the amounts of 10,000iu-20,000iu per day, with a weekly dose of 50,000iu to reach the kind of levels they recommend. There is a ton of information about it on the other CH website's message board.

5-MeO-DALT-wise, maybe try getting your dosing consistent, spaced every five days, at the exact same time of day? Seems like most of your activity is nocturnal now, which could be a good sign that your serotonin is leveling out a bit and only flaring up at night.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your feedback on this, it is very helpful. I hope others reading this thread appreciate what you're doing for all of us!

[tangerinearmy]

got mine thru the post only 1g to start

not in cycle so will wait

[Lieutenant2]

Thanks, Tangerine! If you think about it. . ."only" 1g is over 60 individual 15mg doses, allowing for measurements being imprecise and a little spillage. So even for a chronic at five-day dosing increments, that 1g is almost an entire year's supply.   

[Lieutenant2]

A little update on the research data here. One of the important factors in how well a tryptamine "works" or doesn't work for us is its affinity for our 5HT2A receptors, basically how well it "sticks". Some stick very well and are highly effective, some don't stick well at all and are less effective. This is only one factor, but it's an important one.

5-MeO-DALT has a nanomolar affinity of 6 (6nM). If you placed this on a line graph of tryptamines, it means it falls right in between LSD and psilocybin. So, a lower affinity than LSD but a higher affinity than psilocybin.

Take from that what you will, I just thought it was a good indication of where this stuff lives in the "tryptamine family".

[par]

Finished up last week with no more PF nights.

Was supposed to have a dose on Thursday, but had a Hypoglycaemia reaction. i.e. felt like I might faint and had to eat something, blood sugars low I expect. So I thought I would skip the ME0-DALT that night...AND.... I went pain free that night waking very relaxed - go figure.

So NewsFlash: Cure for Cluster Headaches - Get Type II Diabetes... - LOL

Anyway, by-the-by, dosed up on Friday and

Friday night: Pain as usual - light - but needing o2.

Saturday night: PF - yay!

Sunday night: Pain as usual - unyay!

But as usual no day pains at all at the moment.

So:

Q1: Any correlation between blood sugars and serotonin levels.

Q2: As it seems like 5MEO-DALT is taking 24 hours to stick and then falling off 24 hours later ( I understand its not that simple, but its easiest to explain like this ) - Would the size of dose increase the stickiness ? Or do you think that maybe I need to step up the nm affinity ladder.

[Lieutenant2]

Hey Par, good update. The nocturnal thing has me really baffled, it seems like you're getting some relief during the day, yet still have the nocturnal hits. Strange.

As for the correlation between diabetes and CH, on the surface, blood sugar shouldn't have anything to do with your attacks. At least not in the classical definition of what CH is. Personally, I work off of a totally different theory of what causes CH, it's not a popular theory, but in my world, your diabetes would have an impact on your CH (could be positive or negative, really. . .depending on whether it's a stressor for you or whether it causes synesthesia).

Total amount-wise, increasing the dosage shouldn't necessarily improve your results. It will always have the same 6nm affinity for your 5HT2A receptors. If you do decide to ramp up the dosage, I would advise against going higher than 30mg. That's getting into the "recreational" range. I believe the most important part is the 5-day dosing schedule, actual amount is secondary.

Please keep updating us! There are several other people using this who are not members of this forum, so I'm keeping notes on each of you.

[par]

I do not have diabetes, but my father has. Need to keep a close eye on it.

I did google - hypothalamus diabetes cluster headaches - to see if there was any googlewhacks on it.

[par]

Just thinking out loud, but if the meo is unsticking at 48 hours. Would that mean I could re-dose, as I would no longer be blocked? Maybe ill try hitting every other day to see what's what. Any thoughts on that?

Also, what with my little hypo turn the other day, wondering about asking the doc to get me an mRI scan booked, is there any particular area/thing to look for/around. Is there any point? Would it be better to try and purposely trigger an attack during it.

[Lieutenant2]

Hmmm. . .well, in basic terms, when we use tryptamines to treat CH, they don't really "stick/unstick", what they really do is plug into our serotonin receptors, send a signal downstream (in our case, the signal is basically "stop draining serotonin randomly") and then they're gone. So as long as the signal is sent, there's not much else we can do for about five days. Effectiveness is really all about how many receptors we can hit and the strength of the signal.

As for the MRI, if you haven't already had one, you definitely should. If you only have CH, your MRI is going to show absolutely nothing, like all of ours have. I did get a disc of cool pictures of my skull, though!

[spiny]

I have been told that an attack can be triggered with Nitroglycerin when in cycle or anytime for those who are chronic. But, having an attack during an MRI would be awful!!! But, having a MRI is important to rule out other issues. 

[par]

I had an MRI before and it absolutely confirmed 100% that without my skin, I would look like an extra from Alien.

[Dallas Denny]

Spiny, ER administration of nitro actually triggered a cycle for me....spent 4 days on the cardiac ward waiting for a heart cath (turned out to be a hietal hernia) gettin morphine shots in my IV port every few hours!!  But, I finally went to a non VA neuro due to that cycle and got the CH diagnosis after being told for several years by VA docs that I had atypical migraines!!!

And, cat scan dye triggered the worst hit I've ever endured!!

DD

[par]

Went away and forgot to take my stuff, DOH. Night time attacks as usual, every 1-2 hours. 3 nights, half a can of o2 taken. Got back 2 nights ago, took 25mg 5meo-dalt and then had the worst attacks night and day to follow. 2 days 1.5 cans of o2. Additional factors, just had terrible weather with torrential rain.

Going to flip back to MM Friday night. So very nearly hit the sumatriptan last night.

Exhausted. Very worried I've gone chronic.

[Lieutenant2]

Hey Par. . .sorry to hear about your CH taking a turn for the worse! Please don't let yourself suffer in the name of some experiment, do whatever you have to do to get out of the pain cycle!

Also, there are some good threads in here, probably from about a year ago, discussing the whole episodic vs chronic thing. Being chronic is not a death sentence, and from personal experience here, I feel being chronic might be better. Sounds crazy, I know. But try to find those threads, they might give you some perspective and help you get your mind in the right place!

Stay strong and fight!

[basoon]

Thank you very much Lieutenant for your work on this and Par for reporting back on your experiences, has been v helpful. I'm sorry to hear you having a tough time at the minute, hope things improve for you soon

Lieutenant, I had a question about the effects of 5meo-dalt. I really like the the idea of being able to measure accurately how much I'm consuming each dose. Know it's a difficult question to answer, as sure it varies a lot, but what I'm wondering about is how much of a trip is likely from a 20mg dose and how long it lasts?

When i busted with shrooms I really really struggled with the psychological effects of the trip. I moved to RC seeds and find them much easier to tolerate but have still ended up tripping out a bit too much using them (at fairly high doses) a couple of times. I'm guessing that this being the case means 5meo-dalt might not be suitable for me?

[par]

I'm up to 25mg at the moment and a slight happy/fidgety feeling. Not much more.

This week, 2 bad days/nights, 3rd night almost PF, 4th night 2 wakes but very light pain. Clean days from 3rd day. Perhaps cos I skipped a couple of days in redosing it took a little longer to beat the beast back down. Going to alternate between mm and 5meo from Friday and see if my body was getting to used to 5meo.

[CHfather]

I moved to RC seeds and find them much easier to tolerate but have still ended up tripping out a bit too much using them (at fairly high doses) a couple of times.

bassoon, would you mind saying what the RC dose levels were that induced some kind of trippiness?  even knowing that there are many variables (including personal ones and ones related to seeds' LSA content), it would be helpful to know where that threshold was for you.

thank you.

[Lieutenant2]

Hey Par. . .glad to hear you're being persistent! Something I have learned over the years, fixing CH isn't a pill or a potion, it's a PROCESS. It took us years to develop this disorder, it takes time to get rid of it. But that's a totally different topic. . .

Basoon, CHfather has a great question there. (He and I are going to open a research lab if we can get along in the same room.     )

But yes, each of us has a different response to any form of psychedelics. Someone I know was very comfortable at 15mg, only feeling a slight buzz. Able to read, carry on conversations, totally normal. And this is with zero history of recreational drug use (I always have concerns about people who may have "fried" some receptors in their younger years). I also know of a person with a long history of psychedelic use, bot recreational and as treatment, who is currently using that same 15mg every five days, very little in the way of psychedelic effects, and is getting excellent CH relief.

I guess it should be noted that all tryptamines are different, too. So the "trips" from psilocybin, LSA, LSD, synthetics, etc. really can't be compared apples-to-apples. Only from personal stories here, though. . .the effects felt by the average person on 15mg of 5-MeO-DALT are approximately the same as the effects of approximately 75 RC seeds extracted for 4-5 hours in alcohol, only shorter-lasting.

[par]

Is it possible to burn out those recepters?, as MM and MEO - don't seem to be having nearly the effect that they have had in the past, CH getting worse it seems?

What is the deal with OD on O2 - a number of times I have fallen asleep whilst on 12lpm to end up finishing the bottle on waking?

Am also getting night sweats, have done for a few years now, so the thread on low testosterone is interesting. More blood work to be done I guess.

[razorPP]

par, you know I'm always amazed no matter what I throw at my CH it finds away to come back. What seems worse will cycle though, stay strong and keep trying.

[Lieutenant2]

Yeah Par, I think it might be a good time to stop all tryptamines and get some medical advice. Oxygen can be deadly, as silly as that sounds. Falling asleep with 12lpm running isn't a good idea. We're equipped to breathe ~20.8% oxygen at atmospheric pressures, not 100% oxygen.

[CHfather]

par, if you don't use the strap to hold the mask to your face, it will just fall off if you fall asleep.